SOTU Voce

I never watch the State of the Union address, so I'm not going to comment on it too much except to say that it's all political theater - the President lays out policy initiatives everyone knows about anyway, acts as a stepping-stone to the 2012 elections, and tries (if only half-heartedly- to pump up the base. Same old same old. Here's a wrap-up if you're interested.

Back to real life today.

Slouching Towards Third-World Status

Obama has been emphasizing "competitiveness" ahead of his Tuesday State of the Union address. But what does "competitiveness," particularly with respect to China, really mean? It means less. Less for you, less for your family, and less for the workers of this country. Paul Krugman of the New York Times explains:

A corporate leader who increases profits by slashing his work force is thought to be successful. Well, that’s more or less what has happened in America recently: employment is way down, but profits are hitting new records. Who, exactly, considers this economic success?

Still, you might say that talk of competitiveness helps Mr. Obama quiet claims that he’s anti-business. That’s fine, as long as he realizes that the interests of nominally “American” corporations and the interests of the nation, which were never the same, are now less aligned than ever before.

(Emphasis mine.) Generally speaking, "competitiveness" means workers in the states accepting lower wages--and with them, a lower standard of living. unfortunately, Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, has just been tapped by Obama to head up the newly-minted President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. But Immelt's specialty while at GE was sending American jobs overseas, principally to China.

Look - the economy is not in trouble because we have been too tough on business. Far from it. In fact, if we had been tougher on the financial sector from 2000-2006, we wouldn't have had irresponsible lending, creation of dangerous, economically-explosive financial derivatives, and the economic collapse of 2008. If we had better import regulations and a more forward-looking scheme of taxing imports, the disparity between the dollar and yuan wouldn't be acting like a 30% tax on American goods going to China, and a 30% subsidy by China for Chinese goods shipped here. We would have been able to save American jobs, millions of them, if not tens of millions of them.

China has an industrial policy; we don't. As a direct result, since their belated embrace of capitalism, they're beating the economic pants off of us. They are winning the only war that counts. And many in Congress and the Administration don't even realize we are in a war.

"American" companies are not economic saviors to be coddled and kowtowed to; they are potential economic enemies with interests not aligned with the country's. They need to be brought to heel, hard, and fast.

Fresh Organic LInks

• What's the worst bottled water you can buy? Hmmm... One is from Whole Foods.
• What does it mean when chicken is labeled "free range" or "organic"? Organic definitely seems better:

So, when you're shopping for chicken, what do labels like "free range" or "pastured" really mean? . . . I called two experts, Tom Schneller, who teaches meat identification and butchery at the Culinary Institute of America (and the man who taught me how to break down chicken), and Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, an advocacy group for family farms and a fierce "organic" production watchdog.

The first thing Mr. Kastel said to me was kind of dispiriting: "Well, some of those labels just mean whatever the marketer happens to want them to mean."

• CAFO The Book. CAFO, of course, refers to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. Watch a short movie about it:

• Organic dairies in danger from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Specifically, the USDA is considering, today, whether to deregulate genetically modified alfalfa. GM alfalfa, if fed to dairy cows, would prevent dairy farmers from labeling milk from those cows "organic". Organic milk would suddenly be much harder to come by, and formerly-organic dairy farmers would suddenly find it much harder to compete in the factory milk market.

White House Press Corps Gets Bitchslapped

By Dean Baker of The Guardian:

The domestic policy issues raised by this trip were altogether invisible in the reporting in major news outlets.

The news accounts were filled with the long list of items that President Obama was likely to raise with President Hu. There are issues about China respecting the patents and copyrights of US firms. The US has concerns about market access in China for our retailers, our financial firms and some of our manufactured products.

And then there are issues about the relative value of the dollar and yuan. Yep, the White House press corps got together the whole list, presented it to the public, and then went home and had a drink.

. . .

The real job of reporting in Washington last week should have been trying to find out the actual priority that President Obama was assigning to the various items on his list.

This is what the public needs to know: different items will obviously matter more to some people than others. Most people in the United States probably don't give a damn if the Chinese pay Bill Gates for making copies of MS Windows.

. . .

The fact is that the public has no clue as to what the Obama administration's priorities were in negotiating with China – because the media made no effort to find out.

Well, this is not surprising - the White House Press Corps, like much of the Washington media elite, has always been more interested in political wrangling and clashes of personality than in real, substantive policy. Hey, they got theirs; why should they care if someone else doesn't? And politics is such good theater.

Well, I said they got bitchslapped. But the Corps is so numb at this point, I doubt they felt it.

Off the Cliff, Republican Style

Newt Gingrich, Republican ex-con-man and 2012 Presidential hopeful, has been not-so-quietly pushing for Congress to pass a law allowing states to declare bankruptcy. Certain Republican Senators are just as quietly hopping on board. Quite a number of states are in real financial trouble, including California, Illinois, New York and Texas. However, Gingrich's idea, if successful, would be a disaster for two reasons.

First, one of the main points of allowing states to declare bankruptcy would be to get out from under their state employee pension funding obligations. At the very least, it gives worker-hostile elements at the state level more power against state employee unions:

Bankruptcy could permit a state to alter its contractual promises to retirees, which are often protected by state constitutions, and it could provide an alternative to a no-strings bailout.

. . .

Still, discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.

“They are readying a massive assault on us,” said Charles M. Loveless, legislative director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “We’re taking this very seriously.”

So this one aspect is already a two-fer Republican wet dream. Not only would allowing states to declare bankruptcy allow states to crush unions, and thereby crush workers, an idea at the dark heart of every Republican, but it would take the pressure off Republicans in the state legislatures to do something sensible, like raise taxes. Voila!

Not only that, but if state workers were sufficiently demoralized to go elsewhere, the state government itself would be weakened. And that satisfies Republicans' irrational hatred of government.

There's the possibility, too, that the states could, under the law, move employees from a defined benefit program (that is, pensions with a guaranteed payout per month) to a defined contribution program (more like a 401k, 457b, 503c, or similar plan). This is a standard move the corporations have been using for decades to fuck workers out of a decent retirement, because it is practically impossible to sock enough away in such a plan to pay for life after the office. But then again, it's very Republican to die in a small, unheated apartment in the middle of winter because you couldn't pay your gas bill.

But all of this isn't even the best part for Republicans. No, the best part is that if one or more states declared bankruptcy, that state's credit rating would be shot to hell. No one would be interested in buying that states bonds for years to come. This would make deficit financing almost impossible going forward, and would, in one fell swoop, usher in an era of Republican austerity, the kind they've been aching for for decades now.

Moreover, even any serious move to push such a law through Congress would spook the entire state debt market; since the law would be applicable to all states, not just ones in financial trouble, no potential investor could be sure a state would not just declare bankruptcy as a first option, not a last resort. This would be particularly true if the state legislature were controlled by Republicans, who are vindictive when holding others to their debts, but almost criminal in escaping theirs. Fiscal responsibility is some other schmuck's problem. The nationwide state debt market would be chilled enough that suddenly, states who were maintaining fiscal soundness would suddenly become cash-strapped, or even insolvent, themselves.

So the effect of Gingrich's pet law would be to (1) crush unions, (2) bring state employees to heel, (3) keep Republicans from having to raise revenues, (4) weaken the states' ability to borrow money, (5), weaken the states, generally, and (6) usher in a brand spanking new Golden Age Of Republican Austerity For All (except for them and their supporters, of course).

Sounds like a very good way of creating a Great Depression out of a Great Recession. With Hu Jintao's visit with Obama starkly pointing out how well China is doing economically, and how poorly the US is doing, you would think Republicans would be scrambling to rebuild our economic base. Instead, they are busy dragging us off the cliff into Third World status.

Another Item From the WTF Desk

Progressive poll shows more people now trust Republicans with Social Security than Democrats. You have to be a really pragmatic Democrat to fuck up the one issue that's been a Democratic winner for decades (and completely morally right, to boot).

Expect Democratic representatives and Senators to have a real Come To Jesus moment about Social Security in the next month or two, and expect them to start running from Obama as fast as they can in the process, knocking Republicans out of the way in the process, back into the arms of the voters.

Time to turn the electricity back on the original Third Rail Of Politics.

More Deep Republican Stupid

Health care edition. The day Republicanism is declared a "pre-existing condition" for health insurance purposes, we'll have Federally-mandated health insurance for everyone.

And by the way, the House Republicans voted to take your health care reform away today. Note that CNN has this story under "politics," as if it really has nothing to do with substantial concerns of Americans. Well, given that House Republicans know that their little temper tantrum will never make it past the Senate or Obama's veto pen, and given that the insurance industry will never let them repeal the law that gave them as many as 46 million new customers, the current vote is little more than political masturbation, mutual pleasuring by a circle of jerks.

An we have 23 more months of this crap. I can hardly wait for the anti-Obama investigations to begin.

Slavery Is Back

It figures this would start in Georgia.

Just Like Clinton

We have a Republican President.

Adding that a review of government regulations from time to time is generally a good thing. However, in the current climate, the exercise will undoubtedly devolve into business getting rid of regulations it doesn't like for whatever reason, not to create jobs.

Your Retirement Depends On It

The Jets must lose!

Ewwwwww

Presidential preference poll from Townhall.com:

Palin is predictable, as are Gingrich and Romney. But Palin's stock is falling after her little Facebook "blood libel" brouhaha while Obama was busy healing the nation. Gingrich is a Presidential wanna-be who fell flat during the Clinton years. Besides, he's got a little personal baggage. Romney? The voters rejected him soundly in the Republican primaries of 2008 (in favor of McCain..Imagine!). Ron Paul is a libertarian nutjob the country as a whole would take seriously. Huckabee is a Christian conservative Huckster, though he's taking the early 2012 Iowa vote. Pawlenty might be a serious contender. And Johnson? Who the f&$% is Johnson?

But Bolton? John Bolton? As in "Mr. President John Bolton"?

Ewwwwww.

It's A Bad Idea, Really

One of the worst ideas ever to infect American politics is the idea that successful business people will make the best political leaders. The idea sounds attractive enough, at first glance. We're a capitalist society that prides itself on its entrepreneurial spirit; entrepreneurs and CEOs are natural leaders; success in business should translate into success in politics; etc., etc., etc. But when you look below the surface, you should begin to realize that business people will make some very lousy political leaders.

First - To what do business leaders owe their highest allegiance? An ideal? A sense of fairness? Equality? Justice? Democracy? Negative on all counts. The bottom line - profit. That's it. That one goal is the focus of the business person's existence. Employees are secondary to it, other community members are secondary to it. Hell, even stockholders, and to a certain extent customers, are secondary to it. A business leader owes his or her allegiance to profit first. Everything else is secondary. Including allegiance to this country.

You know this is true. How many communities, towns, cities have been totally fucked because various small-minded business leaders decided to move their business elsewhere - even out of the country? Ask Flint. or Detroit. Or Saginaw. Or Buffalo. or Pittsburgh. Or Cleveland. Business leaders have no sense of community; they have no sense of allegiance to the people surrounding their businesses, or to the people working for their businesses. Instead, they are rewarded for sacrificing others for the good of the bottom line.

Now imagine such a person as a lawmaker. He or she would naturally first have the interest of businesses in mind, not people. After all, that is the culture they came from. They would also tend to think of people, even the people the represent, as expendables, just like employees. A budget exists not to facilitate government provision of services, but to meet expenses, or even turn a profit. People are tools, a means to an end, and not the end in themselves.

And that is the greatest failing of business leaders who move to public service. They fail to see themselves as working for the people. Instead, they see the people they represent as expenses, a detriment to the bottom line. Small wonder they always think first of balancing budgets, cutting salaries, cutting workers, and cutting services, no matter the human cost. Moreover, they are trained to think of taxes as an onerous expense, to be religiously avoided. As a result, they never, never consider increasing revenues (taxes) to provide services for real people.

In short, the skill sets that make business leaders successful in business make them very poor political leaders, and very poor stewards of the people's government. It's time to give them the pink slip.

Deep Stupid

More Deep Republican Stupid.

Even Deeper Republican Stupid.

It's a wonder they remember how to wake up in the morning.

Organic Gardening

From Howdini.com, a great introductory video on home organic gardening:

Organic Wine

Interesting article from Organic Consumers Association about what organic wine is and what's in it.

More Fresh Organic Links

San Diego area organic farms - See the partial list below. All grow a variety of vegetables. Note that some have Community Sponsored Agriculture (CSA) programs.. CSA programs allow nearby residents to purchase a share in the harvest, usually delivered in weekly shipments during the growing season. A really good way to help local organic farms and improve the quality of the food you eat!

• Seabreeze Organic Farm - In Northern San Diego just adjacent to Los Penasquitos Canyon preserve - they do home deliveries of vegetables and honey. Check out the video! CSA program.
• Be Wise Ranch - CSA program.
• Suzie's Farm - CSA program.
• Find out more about San Diego area CSAs at the San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project!

Other organic links:

• Same Cafe in Denver, CO is an organic restaurant operating on a pay-what-you-can system.
• Fresh produce buying clubs are gaining in popularity in Florida. The CSAs mentioned above are essentially buyer's clubs - try one out!
• British beekeepers are furious over their association's paid endorsement of bee-killing pesticides. Interestingly, all are pyrethroids from Bayer, Belchim, BASF and Syngenta, not the neonicotinoids sold by Bayer that some hold responsible for the sudden rise of Colony Collapse Disorder in the United States.
• National Organic Program's Notice of Draft Guidance concerning "Made with Organic" ingredients labeling. Ironically, some San Diego organic farmers, while adhering to organic practices, have given up trying to become Certified Organic because the process is too laborious. Let's hope the labeling doesn't suffer a similar fate.
• Nine food additives that may contribute to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
• Some National Parks have free admission for Martin Luther King Day!
• Large CAFO-type corporate operations now control 80% of the "organic egg" market segment:

(From Organic Consumers Association)

Why The RNC Shakeup?

Reince Priebus was elected new Chair of the Republican National Committee, defeating former Chair Michael Steele. Why the change?

Well, one reason is that Steele tended to get himself, and the RNC, into the spotlight for the wrong reasons, including verbal missteps, small scandals, and an RNC debt of around $21 million. But I think there's another reason, as well.

Steele was brought in at a time when Barack Obama had just been elected President, and the country was celebrating the fact that an African-American had finally been elected. It was a momentous change of course, and, after stinging electoral defeats in 2006 and in other 2008 races, the RNC undoubtedly felt compelled to show that it, too, had a diverse face.

Two years later, however, the political landscape shifted dramatically with the rise of the inaptly-named Tea Party. The Tea Party movement is seen by many as instrumental in the electoral surge that swept Republicans back into power in the House in 2010. Lately, however, the Tea Party has been showing it's racist roots.

Given this change of climate, it wouldn't be surprising if many in the Republican Party made the political calculation that catering to ideas of diversity wasn't so important, after all, and that Republicans needed to return to their core principles. The Southern Strategy was, after all, a creature of the Republican Party.

This is not to say the RNC is becoming overtly racist. Priebus was elected only after 7 ballots, indicating significant remaining support for Steele, who bowed out after 4 ballots. Instead, it reflects more a political calculation about which leader would make the RNC stronger going into 2012. In making that calculation, however, Republcans confirm that they are a party of power, not principle.

Where Are Guns The Deadliest?

A study on gun deaths, published in the Atlantic, revealed some surprising things.

First, gun deaths per 100,000 appeared to be highest in states with higher gun ownership (such as in the South, particularly Louisiana, and in the mid- and mountain West), and, in the case of Arizona and Nevada, in states with extraordinarily lax open- and concealed-carry laws. Far fewer gun deaths per 100,000 occurred in the Northeast, where gun control laws are stricter. (An exception is Washington D.C., which had the highest per-100,000 gun death rate in the country.)

Correlations between certain social factors and gun deaths were also surprising (or not). States voting for McCain, for example, had higher rates of gun-related deaths than states voting for Obama (R = 0.66). States with higher rates of poverty had higher rates of gun deaths (R = 0.59). States with higher percentages of college grads had lower rates of gun deaths (R = -0.64). And states with higher numbers of immigrants had lower rates of gun deaths (R = 0.34).

No, these correlations aren't airtight-strong. Rather than being proof that the social factors listed cause gun deaths, they more suggest that the social climate in those states that led to those social outcomes also lead to higher, or lower, rates of gun deaths per 100,000 residents. However, the correlations are strongly suggestive that a populace in poverty is more dangerous than an economically sound one; that more guns does not equal more safety; and that education can reduce gun deaths.

Imagine that - liberal positions (reducing poverty, controlling guns and improving access to education) really do make us safer.

Refighting Old Battles

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) speaks lovingly of child labor. Or at least, the alleged right of the individual states to regulate child labor, as opposed to the Federal Government:

Congress decided it wanted to prohibit [child labor], so it passed a law—no more child labor. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to that and the Supreme Court decided a case in 1918 called Hammer v. Dagenhardt. In that case, the Supreme Court acknowledged something very interesting — that, as reprehensible as child labor is, and as much as it ought to be abandoned — that’s something that has to be done by state legislators, not by Members of Congress. [...]

This may sound harsh, but it was designed to be that way. It was designed to be a little bit harsh. Not because we like harshness for the sake of harshness, but because we like a clean division of power, so that everybody understands whose job it is to regulate what.

Now, we got rid of child labor, notwithstanding this case. So the entire world did not implode as a result of that ruling.

Actually, the Federal government got rid of child labor, in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Hammer in United States v. Darby:

The conclusion is inescapable that Hammer v. Dagenhart was a departure from the principles which have prevailed in the interpretation of the Commerce Clause both [p117] before and since the decision, and that such vitality, as a precedent, as it then had, has long since been exhausted. It should be, and now is, overruled.

Unanimously.

Lee's plaint about the power of the states vs. the Federal government is of the same piece as the "States Rights" movement of the '50s and '60s (continued into the '80s). As Digby puts it, "These people don't believe that America is a country. They don't believe that it is an American value, across all state lines and across all political divisions to ensure that children are not exploited." But that's what Republicans (and Teabaggers are Republicans, after all) do - they exploit. An, like every other example of the victimization of people, they will believe that the victims themselves are to blame, through some moral fault.

Actually, it's worse. These people are stuck in the 18th Century, when it was OK and safe to think of the individual states as states, in the sense of different countries. They really would prefer to give the states far more power at the expense of the Federal government. In doing so, however, they would legally and economically balkanize the country into a collection of little fiefdoms, where they could exploit people without interference. At the root, what they are arguing for is weakening the United States of America. They think less like Americans than most people do, and they would be willing to pull this country down to satisfy their petty notions of what the Federal government ought and ought not be able to do.

(If they really wanted a "clean division of power," they should have the states cede all powers to the Federal government, and have the Federal government delegate that power back to them, retaining supremacy. The states already handle power vs. counties and local municipalities in this manner; those powers are derivative of, and subject to, the power of the State. No question about divisional of power.)

Their line of thinking was rejected politically when the Articles of Confederation were ditched in favor of the Constitution. It was rejected militarily in the Civil War. It was rejected economically in the New Deal. And it was rejected socially during the Civil Rights movement.

Why are we going to have to fight this battle again?

It's Giffords' Fault For Getting Shot?

At least, according to one teabagger. Trent Humphries, co-founder of Tucson's Tea Party, says:

The real case is that she [Giffords] had no security whatsoever at this event. So if she lived under a constant fear of being targeted, if she lived under this constant fear of this rhetoric and hatred that was seething, why would she attend an event in full view of the public with no security whatsoever?

So it was her fault for putting herself in the position to get shot. She's a representative of her district; that doesn't mean she actually has to meet people! Maybe she should have gotten one of those plexiglass bubbles the Pope uses. "Guns are a big thing in Arizona. It's a culture," Humphries said.

Irony aside, the above quote was in the course of complaining that the attempted assassination of Giffords was being turned to criticism of the Tea Party. It's all about them, after all. Hey, we're all victims here!

Actually, this is classic conservatism - blame the victim, and turn yourself into a victim at the same time.

On the heels of this, I have to ask - what is wrong with these people?

A Community Organizer's Death in China

Community organizer Qian Yunhui in Zhaiquiao, China, may have been murdered for protesting the building of a power plant on his family's ancestral property. It's not clear at this time who may have murdered him, but it was the local Chinese government that forced him to give up his land. They were also quite methodical in cleaning up any evidence of murder:

Qian's body was taken away before an autopsy could be performed. Officials reported that a security camera at the spot where Qian died wasn't working.

The two people who villagers say saw men press Qian down as the truck ground his life away disappeared briefly. When they surfaced on state television in separate interviews four days later, they denied seeing anything suspicious.

One of them, Qian Chengyu, was in handcuffs and behind bars during the television interview.

The other, Huang Diyan, said she'd been coached by unnamed collaborators to say she'd witnessed a killing. Careful viewers could see a man dressed in what looked like a police uniform reflected in the window behind her.

A friend, who asked for anonymity for fear of being arrested, told McClatchy that police had taken Huang's husband to a hotel for a night and told him that it would be best for her family if she recanted her tale of murder.

China is an emerging world powerhouse because of its embrace of capitalism. But capitalism doesn't equal freedom, nor does it equal freedom from an oppressive government. It just means the Chinese government learned how to make money. We're not as bad as the Chinese government, by far, but protesting anything in the States is still likely to get you arrested.

What Obama Does Best

Obama is a masterful and moving speaker. His speech tonight:

(Video from Crooks and Liars) As others have pointed out, I'm sure the Right will criticize him for the audience's cheering during the speech. And Boehner has already blown him, and grieving Arizonans, off in favor of an RNC fundraiser.

This Just In From The WTF Desk

Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) spurs Arizona sales of Glock handguns. Why? A "deadly demonstration of the handgun's effectiveness".

You may need one of these to travel to Arizona. You have been warned.

Republican Solutions

Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) is almost assassinated. Republican Louie Gohmert's (R-TX) response? A push to allow guns on the floor of the US House of Representatives.

Republicans have been wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth about the deficit. So they vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office states will add approximately $230 billion to the deficit.

OK, so the Republican solution to a high-profile shooting is more guns. And the Republican solution to the deficit is more debt. The obvious Republican solution to liberals, therefore must be...

...more liberals!

The New Racism

Radical Republican Teabaggers in Wake County, North Carolina abolish the school district's integration policy.

The new school board has won applause from parents who blame the old policy - which sought to avoid high-poverty, racially isolated schools - for an array of problems in the district and who say that promoting diversity is no longer a proper or necessary goal for public schools.

"This is Raleigh in 2010, not Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s - my life is integrated," said John Tedesco, a new board member. "We need new paradigms."

Like returning to Selma, Alabama of the 1950s. LIke abandoning integration.

The Tea Party Takeover of the School Board was aided, in part by Art Pope, Republican and one of the richest men in North Carolina. Pope has spent over $28 million on conservative think tanks in the last few years, and spent over $2 million trying to buy Republicans into the NC State Legislature. Pope has said he would "back extra funding" for poor, racially isolated (meaning predominantly black) local schools.

That's heavy Republican influence to get NC back to "separate but equal" - an old racist standby.

In other news, Republican Arizona State Legislator and District Chairman Anthony Miller resigned today after "constant verbal attacks after [the last] election and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him worry about his family's safety."

In an e-mail sent a few hours after Saturday's massacre in Tucson that killed six and injured 13, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Miller told state Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen he was quitting: "Today my wife of 20 yrs ask (sic) me do I think that my PCs (Precinct Committee members) will shoot at our home? So with this being said I am stepping down from LD20GOP Chairman...

Miller is African-American. When a Republican steps down because of the Tea Party, it's difficult to come to the conclusion that his race was not a factor.

Meet the Tea Party - America's New Racist Right. They're at least the New Radical Right. How safe do you feel?

I'm Bigger

I crap bigger than Rush Limbaugh.

They Really Don't Care About You

The ultra-rich. They're hard workers. They're innovators. They're businessmen. And, increasingly, they are disconnected from any country and any sense of nationalism, or sense of responsibility to the country that bore them. Or to middle class Americans, as a recent article in The Atlantic details:

The U.S.-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds told me that his firm’s investment committee often discusses the question of who wins and who loses in today’s economy. In a recent internal debate, he said, one of his senior colleagues had argued that the hollowing-out of the American middle class didn’t really matter. “His point was that if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade,” the CEO recalled.

I heard a similar sentiment from the Taiwanese-born, 30-something CFO of a U.S. Internet company. A gentle, unpretentious man who went from public school to Harvard, he’s nonetheless not terribly sympathetic to the complaints of the American middle class. “We demand a higher paycheck than the rest of the world,” he told me. “So if you’re going to demand 10 times the paycheck, you need to deliver 10 times the value. It sounds harsh, but maybe people in the middle class need to decide to take a pay cut.”

These elites don't think in terms of countries; they think in terms of capital flows, business opportunities, and global markets. They do not think of people, however, except in terms of Randianism. People to them have no intrinsic worth or rights; as such, they don't mean much. Instead, the elite view people only by what they can produce. It is the ultimate, and only, metric they use.

Going forward, the more global stateless elites there are, and the more powerful they become, the more the companies they control will begin to supplant national governments, both in influence and relevance. And the less relevant government of the people, by the people and for the people will become.

The ultra-rich. They're hard workers. They're innovators. They're businessmen. And they're no friends of yours.

Queensland Flooding, Australia

Some people have it worse than we do. SoCal rains over the last month may have been annoying, but they weren't this bad. Australia is having some of its most serious flooding ever (from yesterday):

However, this is not just a one-time occurrence; the same area had flooding two years ago:

It's worse this time around. But of course, global warming isn't real.

Issa Watch - Part 1

Representative Darryl Issa (R-CA-49), now Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has never been fond of the American Recovery and Investment Act (ARA). The ARA, by the way, included $243.4 billion in tax benefits - I thought Republicans loved those! On Issa's website you can find (under Hot Topics on the lower right) "Stimulus WASTE WATCH" (SWW).

SWW, entitled "Signs of a Failed Stimulus," provides a map festooned with virtual pushpins - each one represents a sign. A sign indicating that a particular project was funded by the ARA. The page objects not to the particular projects funded by the ARA, but the signs themselves:

Signs don't put America back to work, but they are being bought and paid for with your tax dollars in an effort to help President Obama and his pro-stimulus spending allies in Washington keep their jobs.

Ahem. Well, given that Issa is vociferously objecting to the stimulus (or is at least linking to a page that objects to signs letting taxpayers know their funds are actually being used), it would be instructive to find out how ARA funds are being used in Mr. Issa's district.

The federal government helpfully provides a map of awards, nationwide, under the ARA. So what awards have fallen within Darrel Issa's District, and how many jobs have they created (self-reported)?

• $34,344 Sialix, Inc. (Biotech) - 0.5 jobs created
• $414,453 American Design and Build, Inc. - 8 jobs created
• $92,500 McClain Mechanical Systems - 0 jobs created
• $135,582 The Oceanscence Group Ltd. - 0 jobs created
• $18,009 Saturn Landscape Plus, Inc. (Oceanside) - 4.6 jobs created
• $861,850 North County Transit District (Oceanside) - 0.92 jobs created
• $12,739,815 North County Transit District (Oceanside) - 14.95 jobs created (different projects)
• $14,793,465 Aerotek, Inc. (Aerotek is a staffing agency. This is an odd amount to spend on a staffing agency. The award looks to be for a construction project.) - 37.25 jobs created
• $402,951 JDS Plumbing & Mechanical - 0 jobs created (odd; job description is for rehabilitating naval base buildings, but the map indicates the project is in a residential neighborhood.)
• $205,720 Rincon Band of Luiseno Mission Indians - 0 jobs created
• $399,980 Indian Health Council - 0 jobs created
• $41,603 All Mission Indian Housing Authority - 0 jobs created
• $91,827 All Mission Indian Housing Authority - 0 jobs created
• $33,600 Pala Band of Indians - 0 jobs created
• $973,426 Guidry Liason Group, Inc. (Temecula) - 0 jobs created. Award was for "roasted nuts and peanut butter manufacturing" and delivery of same to USDA clients (whatever that means in this context). Map shows this location to be a residential area, however. Odd. Bears further looking into.
• $284,892 Cheycocam Mechanical - 0 jobs created - For repair of underwater survival facility, Marine recruit depot, San Diego.

So far, it looks as if quite a lot of stimulus money was directed to Issa's district, and this list only reflects awards to the southern 1/3 of his district. No wonder he was only complaining about the signs! I'll dig into the rest of his district tomorrow.

Chamber of Someone Else's Commerce

The US Chamber of Commerce is whining again that regulations are stifling the US economy (even as it seems to be picking up steam) and hampering job creation. Some of the regulations they're complaining about? The ones regulating workplace safety and compensation, among others. The USCoC has raised many millions from foreign corporations. Their members have been pretty active in sending jobs overseas, too. It's pretty clear the USCoC looks abroad to places like China and India, where people make a lot less than they do here, and workplaces are a lot more dangerous than they are here, and wish we were more like them.

Killer Idea

Chellie Pingree (D-ME) suggests changing the name of the Republican-sponsored "Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Bill Act" in view of the Giffords shooting. Brilliant idea. Republicans seem too newly-enamored of the phrase "job killing". Except that, where health care reform is concerned, they enjoy the "killing" part much more than the "jobs" part. Not to mention the deficit part.

Job-killing deficit monkeys.

Upcoming CA Redistricting Commission Meetings

The California Redistricting Commission will be holding weekday meetings starting January 12, 2011 and continuing through January 31, 2011. Topics to be discussed include:

1. Swearing-in of last six commissioners.
2. Discussion and selection of Chair and Vice Chair, and introductory remarks.
3. Commission governance, such as limiting time for comments, establishing advisory committees, per diem guidelines, and other governance matters.
4. Appointment of Committee comprised of the last six commissioners for limited purpose of receiving Bagley-Keene Act training.
5. Bagley-Keene training - last six commissioners.
6. Secretary of State support efforts – update and decision.
7. Recruiting and hiring, including training, criteria, interviewing, and choosing staff and consultants.
8. Discussion and action regarding redistricting matters.
9. Schedule, operation and location of future meetings.
10. Discussion and action regarding future training.

Public comment is permitted in a limited way. Please contact Anne Osborne at 1-866-356-5217, or TDD 1-800-735-2929, or votersfirstact@sos.ca.gov to submit written material regarding an agenda item.

So far, other than #8, the meetings so far look to be consumed by routine/training/organizational matters. We'll keep you posted.

How About A Hearing, Mr. Issa?

The Courage Campaign is calling on Daryl Issa (R-CA-49) to hold a hearing on the connection between political hate speech and the Giffords shooting. Issa, you'll recall, is the Representative who promised "a hearing a day" of the Obama administration. We need such a hearing, though Issa almost certainly won't hold one. Lucas O'Connor over at Calitics explains how the attempted assassination of Giffords reminded him of the assassination of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.

Republicans won't take this seriously, though; they're still stuck in the "Loughner was a lone nut/possible liberal" twilight zone.

Oooo, Uncertainty!

Governor Jerry Brown proposes cuts to enterprise zones and a re-imposition of a business tax previously (and irresponsibly) imposed by then-Governor Schwarzenegger. Business leaders are predictably unhappy, citing "uncertainty" resulting from the proposals.

The proposals appear to be good steps, and would certainly be more palatable than the devastating cuts to education and social services he has proposed. Business leaders need to suck it up along with everyone else; employees have been very "uncertain" in the current economic climate. With a $25.4 billion budget shortfall, everyone has to chip in.

Giffords Updates

More fallout from the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ):

• Giffords'' doctors still guardedly optimistic about her condition.
• Politically, Giffords' district, AZ-08, has been tense for years.
• Creepiest mugshot ever. Jared Lee Loughner - all attempted assassins seem to be referred to by three names. Lee Harvey Oswald. James Earl Ray. Sirhan Sirhan. OK, his middle name was Bishra, but no one called him that.
• Speaking of creepy mugshots...
• Loughner was a registered Independent. "Independent" seems to cover a lot of territory these days, and it doesn't necessarily mean "centrist".
• Gloria Borger and Wolf Blitzer (both of CNN) convinced themselves "both sides do it" (referring to violent political imagery). They bent over so far backwards to agree on this point the tops of their heads are touching the floor.
• Arizona legislature to try to prevent the Westboro Baptist Church, who thanked God for Loughner's shootings, from disrupting the funerals of Loughner's victims. Don't know who the Westboro Baptist Church is? You can check out these loving Christians at their website, www.godhatesfags.com (I'm not kidding).
• Recent History: Republican Robert Lowry, opponent of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) in the the last election, once did target practice using a target with the initials "DWS" next to it.
• Tom Tomorrow, brilliant as usual, this time about gun control.
• We live in a culture that loves guns and loves power - and likes to mix the two on occasion.
• The FBI arrested an individual today who threatened Senator Michael Bennett (D-CO). This person, however, just sounded mentally disturbed, and self-identified as a schizophrenic. I'm betting more of these threats are going to be take seriously going forward. Here's hoping more money can be pried loose from state legislatures to help the mentally ill.

Relax

After the weekend we had, time for a bit of relaxation (Childrens' pool, La Jolla) :

OK, back to work...

The Real Rightwing Fear

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik had this to say yesterday at a press conference about the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ):

... when you look at unbalanced people, how they ... respond to the vitriol out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to outrageous. And unfortunately, I think Arizona has become sort of the capital, we have beome the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry...

In response, Right wing radio talk show host Jon Justice (KQTH FM 104.1) had this to say (from The Tucson Weekly):

Dupnik took his moment in the spotlight to drive a political wedge into the event. They were reckless and dangerous statements made by someone who should have known better. He should have been using his time to help bring the community together. Instead his statements made Tucson appear to be a city full hate, bigotry and vitriol. To say, as Dupnik did, that comments made on the airwaves essentially motivated this person to commit this crime is exactly what he blamed talk radio of doing, inciting through pure rhetoric. It was complete misuse of his power and he owes the media in town, TV and radio, an apology for his horrible comments in the middle of such a tragic day. He should step down immediately from his position as Pima County Sheriff.

As one commenter to the article above stated:

It's interesting that the rightwing is angry when Dupnik never said anything about the rightwing - only about bigotry and intolerance. It speaks volumes that rightwingers want to reflexively denounce all attacks on bigotry and intolerance.

Couldn't have said it better myself. The Right in this country is worried the majority of Americans will begin to see them for what they are becoming.

Loughner Mentally Ill?

Was Jared Lee Loughner (assassins always seem to have three names...) mentally ill? That's not known at this time, but some have speculated this may be the case. Answers to the shootings in Tucson are looking more complicated by the hour.

At least Giffords appears to her doctors to be doing better than yesterday. Prayers go out to her.

Funny

Politics and Economics in six panels.

Food With Pesticides: The Dirty Dozen

Older news, but worth repeating. Which foods contain the most pesticides if you don't get them organically-grown?

Celery

Peaches

Strawberries

Apples

Domestic blueberries

Nectarines

Sweet bell peppers

Spinach, kale and collard greens

Cherries

Potatoes

Imported grapes

Lettuce

If you can't get these organically where you live, at least wash them thoroughly. One way to do so is to use a weak solution of baking soda and vinegar in water (wait for the fizzing to die down). Rinse the fruits or vegetables in the solution, then in water, and you'll be much better off.

There is also a "Clean 15" - fruits and vegetables for which you can peel off the outer layer to remove pesticides before eating:

Onions

Avocados

Sweet corn

Pineapples

Mango

Sweet peas

Asparagus

Kiwi fruit

Cabbage

Eggplant

Cantaloupe

Watermelon

Grapefruit

Sweet potatoes

Sweet onions

Eat these (organic is still better), and the dirty dozen above (after washing), and you'll be on your way to a healthier lifestyle.

Next Meetings

Just a reminder - our next meetings are as follows:

January 15 - 6PM at Stone Brewing, Citricado Parkway in San Marcos (Map)

February 5 - 6PM at Sammy's Woodfired Pizza in Carmel Valley (Map)

See you there!

Fallout From The Giffords Shooting

A lot of fallout from the Giffords shooting yesterday, at which 6 people died, including Federal Judge John Roll and a 9-year old girl. Opinion and commentary from around the web:

• Giffords not yet awake.
• Details about the six victims are emerging.
• "Lock and Load" political imagery not just a metaphor anymore.
• Giffords' shooting may mean the end of political access of representatives by constituents.
• The country's Right wing has set up a culture of violence and contempt over the last two years.
• Tone of political discourse in the country might have influenced Loughner.
• Did a Right wing pro-gun culture help encourage Loughner?
• Republicans blame assassin, not lax gun laws.
• Republicans are already claiming Loughner was a left-winger (if so, why did he shoot a Democrat?).
• Tucson Tea Party - Business as usual after shooting.
• Europeans see increasingly heated American political rhetoric as becoming dangerous.

Not An Isolated Incident

The attempted assassination today of Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was not an isolated incident. The right wing of this country has been stirring up the countryside with militant hate speech ever since Obama was sworn into office.

The right wing in this country ha stepped over a line. They think they're being good patriots, but instead they're becoming good...

I'll let you fill in the blanks.

Congresswoman Giffords (D-AZ) Shot

Update (12.50PM): Early reports that Giffords was killed are, very fortunately, wrong; she is out of surgery and is recovering in the ICU.

A suspect in his late teens/early twenties is in custody. This is not just an assassination, it is terrorism. More than that, because Giffords is a Democrat, we have to assume the terrorist act was right-wing and politically motivated. Would be interesting to find out who the shooter says prompted him to take action - Beck? Hannity? Limbaugh? In the political environment we're in right now, I don't think we can assume the shooter was just a lone nut.

***

Congresswoman Gabriele Giffords (D-AZ) has just been shot - condition unclear. Motive unclear, but it's not the first time she's had problems in her district:

The shooting occurred at a Safeway supermarket in northwest Tuscon as Ms. Giffords hosted an event, called “Congress on Your Corner," to allow members of the 8th Congressional District to meet her individually. . . . At one such event in 2009, a protester was removed by police when his pistol fell on the supermarket floor. . . .

Last March, her Tucson office was vandalized a few hours after the House vote overhauling the nation’s health care system.

Best wishes to Ms. Giffords. Republicans should be standing up right now loudly protesting this latest in an apparent string of homegrown terrorist actions.

Update: Sarah Palin's website until recently had a map, with 20 Congressmembers' names under a map of the US, with rifle scope target sites for each, including Giffords. More on Palin targeting Giffords.

Update: Giffords' previous opponent, Jesse Kelly, was a bit of a gun nut. This is what "Second Amendment remedies" looks like, folks.

Update (1:30PM): Federal Judge John Roll, also killed in today's shooting, was previously a target of the Right wing.

Update (1:43PM): Homegrown AZ anti-government nutjobbery.

Update (1:52PM): KGUN (Tucson AZ) videos of the scene.

Welcome To The California State Legislature

Here is information about California's legislature, and how it relates to the San Diego area.

The California state legislature is divided into two bodies, the lower house, also known as the California State Assembly, and the upper house, also known as the California State Senate.

The California State Assembly has 80 members, one from each of the 80 Assembly districts. The Assembly is composed of 52 Democrats and 28 Republicans. Note that Democrats hold 65% of the Assembly seats. A map of Los Angeles - San Diego area districts is available here. So which districts are in the San Diego area, and who are the representatives?

• 74th District: Assemblyman Martin Garrick (R) - Carlsbad, Vista, San Marcos, Escondido (part), Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar
• 75th District: Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher (R) - Carmel Valley, Fairbanks Ranch, Poway, Ramona, Escondido (part), La Jolla, Miramar are
• 76th District: Assemblymember Toni Atkins (D) (Toni Atkins is the Majority Whip in the Assembly) - San Diego (North Clairemont, Montgomery Field, University Heights, Downtown, Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, Point Loma, Balboa Park
• 77th District: Assemblyman Brian Jones (R) - The 77th is a big, sprawling district ranging from Miramar at the western end, El Cajon, La Mesa, Jamul, Ramona, San Diego Country Estates, Descanso, Borrego Springs, and areas north of I-8 and east of the Sunrise Highway (except the Cuyamaca State Park area, Julian and Warner Springs), to the San Diego-Imperial County line
• 78th District: Assemblymember Marty Block (D) - South of Mission Trails Regional Park to Skyline West, La Presa, Bonita, San Miguel Ranch, Otay Ranch Village, to Eastlake Vistas
• 79th District: Assemblymember Ben Hueso (D) - Southern central San Diego, Coronao, San Diego Bay, National City, down to the border with Mexico, east to Chula Vista and Otay Mesa

Thus, in terms of Assembly representation, the San Diego area is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

The California State Senate has 40 members, one from each of the 40 Senate Districts. The California State Senate has 24 Democrats and 14 Republicans (with 2 vacant seats). Similar to the Assembly, Democrats hold 64% of the seats, and Republicans 36%. Los Angeles and San Diego area districts are shown here. So which districts are in the San Diego area, and who are the representatives?

• 36th District (R): State Senator Joel Anderson - La Mesa, El Cajon, Santee east to the San Diego County line, and up to Temecula and Murietta
• 38th District (R): State Senator Mark Wyland - San Juan Capistrano, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, San Marcos, Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe, Fairbanks Ranch
• 39th District (D): State Senator Christine Kehoe - Del Mar, Carmel Valley, all of San Diego, Miramar, Lemon Grove, La Mesa (western part)
• 40th District (D): State Senator Juan Vargas - Coronado, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, east south of Highway 94 and east to the San Diego County line; all of Imperial County, north to the Palm Springs/Palm Desert/Cathedral City area

(No part of the 37th District is close to San Diego.) As for the Assembly, the San Diego area is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

Earlier, I posted about our new Redistricting Commission, and how it is empowered to redraw Federal Congressional districts. Well, it is also empowered to redraw state Assembly and Senate district lines, as well. Take a look, for example, at Juan Vargas' district; it looks like a prime target for redistricting, and it wouldn't be too difficult to swing his Senate Seat from Democratic to Republican. We'll keep a watch on this one.

Fresh Organic Links

I've linked below a number of articles I've seen recently about organics, organic products, and the organic way of life. I encourage you to check out the websites the articles came from, too.

• Organic food begins with organic soil - some thoughts about composting.
• Organic food as a lifestyle choice (via www.naturalfoodlist.com).
• Like organic wine? Check out Organic Wine Review!
• Neotame (successor sweetener to aspartame) not to be allowed in organics.
• Millions Against Monsanto - Monsanto is one of the most aggressive biotech companies, marketing "Roundup Ready" genetically engineered plants. They have been a bane of smaller farmers, aggressively pursuing alleged infringers of their GMO patents. While their main patent is about to expire, they may be able to non-legally extend effective patent protection. And the Obama Administration appears to be very Monsanto-sympathetic. At least one judge, however, has ordered Monsanto to pull up a number of fields of GMO sugar beets, citing the possibility of cross-contamination with non-Monsanto crops (essentially converting non-infringing subject matter into infringing subject matter).
• House Republicans remove "Organic" from name of subcommittee charged with overseeing organics. Jean Schmidt has been named Chair - she's a piece of work. Don't expect much for organics out of that committee.
• Organic rap?

Drowning Government One Employee At A Time

Grover Norquist famously stated that he wanted to "reduce [government] to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." The purpose of that reduction, of course, aside from removing regulations that protect people from corporations, is to move government functions to the private sector--essentially outsourcing and "right-sizing" government, to put it in the corpo-speak of the day. A core Republican philosophy, after all, is that the government can't do anything the private sector can't do better.

One way to get the public on board with this stupid notion is to vilify government workers. If government workers are seen as lesser counterparts to private sector workers, the public will be more inclined to drown the government, as well. Republicans have been quite vocal about this for decades, particularly with respect to the schools. One prong of their attack against public schools, in favor of publicly-funded charter schools is vilification of teachers' unions.

Another prong of their attack is their contention that public employees are paid too much. As a result, Republicans are stepping up efforts to crush public employee labor unions. Truth is, however, public employees are underpaid compared to private sector workers. Republicans have to lie to make the accusation stick:

They say public employees earn far more than private-sector workers. That’s untrue when you take account of level of education. Matched by education, public sector workers actually earn less than their private-sector counterparts.

The Republican trick is to compare apples with oranges — the average wage of public employees with the average wage of all private-sector employees. But only 23 percent of private-sector employees have college degrees; 48 percent of government workers do. Teachers, social workers, public lawyers who bring companies to justice, government accountants who try to make sure money is spent as it should be - all need at least four years of college.

Democrats have to step up their support of public employees. It's not just because public employees and their unions tend to vote Democratic; it's the right thing to do.

Baby Steps...

Incoming House Republicans vote to reduce the House budget by $35 million. In an age of symbolic gestures, that's about as symbolic as it gets. John Campbell, R-CA (from just up I-5 in the 48th Congressional District) apparently cut $75,000 from his own budget by firing a staffer. We'll see how long it takes him to decide he needs that position filled again.

Not A Reason To Celebrate Yet

Unemployment drops to 9.4% in December, but is that good news? Not really. First, 9.4% is still a disastrously high rate. Second, the reported figure is likely the U1, the most "forgiving" number. The U6 rate, which includes underemployed and part-time as well as the unemployed, is still at 16.7%, indicating that one out of ever 12 Americans who can work is out of work, or is not making enough to get by. California's numbers are worse; 12.4% of Californians were unemployed as of September 21, 2010. That number didn't change in November 2010.

Moreover, only 103,000 jobs were added in December 2010, indicating that increasing numbers of people are simply not being counted in official employment statistics. That happens when one becomes homeless; the government stops seeing you and stops counting you. You become less of a person. In that respect, our current recession has been a severely dehumanizing one. People who are OK will still feel afraid of losing their jobs, and will catch a whiff of this dehumanization, and they will vote accordingly.

Make no mistake - the number one job for Democrats over the next two years is bringing jobs back, even in the face of Republican opposition (and they will oppose job creation if Democrats push for it!). No one wants to vote for the party in power if they feel dehumanized by the economy. And Democrats will necessarily be seen as the party in power since they control the Senate and Presidency. A word to the wise.

Random Notes

Articles worth checking out:

• Massachusetts Supreme Court Decision may invalidate some mortgage foreclosures and force buy-backs of pooled and securitized mortgages.
• House of Representatives reads Constitution line-by-line. I wonder if they stumbled on the 14th Amendment and the Supremacy Clause? They've been having trouble with those lately.
• Honey bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) may be due to Bayer's Clothianidin - the FDA knew there was a problem, but allowed use of the pesticide anyway.
• William Daley hired as Obama's Chief of Staff. Daley, you might recall (I didn't) was the guy that counseled Al gore not to continue the disputed 2000 Florida recount that could have won him the election. Not the kind of guy you want advising Obama, or arranging his staff, when he has to deal with a hostile Republican House.
• Speaking of the Republican House, their push to repeal "Obamacare" (the Affordable Heath Care Act) will add $230 billion to the Federal deficit over the next 10 years. Go, you deficit monkeys!
• And, straight from the WTF Desk, the Pentagon announces proposed military budget cuts of at least $78 billion over 5 years. OK, it was Robert Gates, but still - Republicans probably see this as friendly fire. A breath of fresh budget-related air. Illusory, though; the military budget will still go up next year.
• The Village will report Republicans as being fiscally responsible until Hell freezes over, facts notwithstanding. They've been cast in that part, and it's too late to teach the media new tricks.
• My favorite YouTube video this week. Better than the original, IMHO.

Cuts Should Start From The Top Down

An article from Calitics.com (go read it) points out another example from the GOP/Republican/Conservative playbook: tearing down government (any government) by vilifying government workers. Think about it - CEOs pulling down $15 million in compensation per year is OK, but government service workers getting by on $40,000 per year is a real problem - something is desperately wrong with this picture.

Republicans are all about chopping up the government and selling off its pieces to the highest--or best-connected--bidder. It's government as potential profit center, not government as public service, for them.

Next Meetings

Just a reminder - our next meetings are as follows:

January 15 - 6PM at Stone Brewing, Citricado Parkway in San Marcos (Map)

February 5 - 6PM at Sammy's Woodfired Pizza in Carmel Valley (Map)

See you there!

Congressional Districts

What Congressional Districts are situated within the San Diego Area? See below:

• 49: Darrel Issa (R) District Map
• 50: Brian Bilbray (R) District Map
• 51: Bob Filner (D) District Map
• 52: Duncan Hunter (R) District Map
• 53: Susan Davis (D) District Map

Boy, two things that really stick out are how throughly gerrymandered these districts look, particularly with respect to CA51 and CA53. It wouldn't be hard at all to imagine the Redistricting Commission redrawing the lines to suddenly make it more difficult for Filner or Davis to keep their jobs.

California Redistricting Commission

Congressional District redistricting in California will be handled this decade (and presumably thereafter) not by the duly elected representatives of the state, but by a 14-member Redistricting Commission. The Commission has already been formed, and consists of the following members:

Democrats

• Gabino Aguirre
• Maria Blanco
• Cynthia Dai
• Elaine Kuo
• Jeanne Raya

Republicans

• Vincent Barraba
• Jodie Filkins Webber
• Lilbert "Gil" R. Ontai
• Michael Ward
• Peter Yao

DTS or "Other" Party

• Michelle R. DiGuilio-Matz
• Stanley Forbes
• Connie Galambos Malloy
• M. Andre Parvenu

The first thing to note is that there are an "equal" number of Democrats and Republicans on the Commission. The Democrats and Republicans selected the remaining four. Those four are DTS (Declines To State their party) or "Other". "Other" is not informative; it could be Green, or Tea Party. The actual balance of Democrats and Republicans on the Commission is therefore unknown, pending some digging into the four members' backgrounds.

The second thing to note is that, of California's 53 Congressional districts, 34 went Democratic in the last election. That's 64%. As such, the Commission does not represent the voting makeup of California. It is therefore undemocratic. In fact, it is highly likely that any redistricting plan produced by the Commission wold be favored, if not heavily favored, in favor of Republicans.

The actions of the Commission bear watching going forward.

Update:

Michele R. DiGuilio-Matz formerly had "ties" with the Green and Democratic Parties.

M. Andre Parvenu previously voted for candidates from the Peace and Freedom Party.