How pathetic is this?

A request for 72 hours to read proposed legislation is voted down, by Democrats.

◼ Dems block GOP demand for more time washingtontimes.com

Not just a request for TIME TO READ it but a to have a full cost-estimate before they vote on it, turned down.

"The American people are angry that Speaker Pelosi didn't allow the public and their elected representatives to read the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' bill or the national energy tax before they were rammed through the House," Minority Leader John Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Wednesday. "Congress can, and must, do better."

In the Senate Finance Committee debate, Democrats argued that the amendment, offered by Sen. Jim Bunning, Kentucky Republican, was merely an attempt to stall President Obama's top legislative priority.

And there you have it.

Your legislators are not working for you.

Shoulda just registered as a GREEN

There's not a snowball's chance in hell that the HCDCC is going to endorse New Democrat Virginia Bass. They didn't endorse Democrat Richard Marks against Bonnie Neely when she was a Republican - even THOUGH he had participated in all the bake sales. Now she has switched parties, Republican to Democrat, AND Jeff Leonard, AND Richard Marks are also reportedly in the race. (Has Neely announced?)

As a GREEN, you would have given them a possible winning candidate they could be proud of - coulda been interesting. Libertarian would have been better.

It is a non-partisan race, after all - and the never-ending political season is upon us. ◼ Primary race still a year away for Supes

◼ Heraldo
◼ Richard Marks
◼ Bonnie's coming out party. Richard Marks
◼ Eric
◼ Prev. Post on Neely

Time for a change, today's TS Op-Ed makes some great points

☛TS Time for a change
1. Today Assemblyman Wes Chesbro has no reason to be accountable to our community and every reason to be accountable to his party leadership since they control his employment potential and welfare even during those periods when he is not in elected office. This is exactly what he does.

Legislators... need to challenge the dysfunctional party structure dependent operational mode that pervades the current legislature.

Absolutely right. In Sacramento and at the National level. Not just Chesbro.

For the record

The Republican history on racism - not what you think it is.
good link here and good link here. (pdf)

The beginning of the end of the Partisan Divide?

Centrist Democrats and Republicans working together!



Clinton supporters sharing evidence for RICO case against Obama campaign
The article ... states, and we have confirmed this with people who know for sure, that the people who gathered evidence of Obama’s fraud and voter intimidation techniques during the primaries against Hillary Clinton are sharing everything they have with the Republican Party and the federal government.

What’s happening here is something we have never seen before: centrist Clinton Democrats and Republicans are working together to expose the DNC and Obama campaign’s illegal activities and orchestrated, coordinated fraud. Both parties are working with federal agents to investigate ACORN, which has been funded with upwards of $800,000 in questionable donations from the Obama campaign (in what appears to be the expressed and explicit direction to engineer voter fraud in the general election). The tactics being employed now in the 15 states currently under investigation are the VERY SAME TACTICS we saw on the ground in Iowa, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, and other states working for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

And all of this ties back to Chicago.

Where the Obama campaign and DNC are now based....

The documentary “We Will Not Be Silenced” shows that there were thousands of complaints to the DNC about illegal and improper conduct by the Obama Campaign during the caucuses and it establishes, among other things, falsification of documents, that results were changed, that unregistered people were allowed to vote, that there were threats to Hillary supporters to scare and intimidate them, that they were stalked, and even locked out of their polling places.

“We Will Not Be Silenced” presents interviews with numerous witnesses including teachers, professors, civil rights activists, lawyers, janitors, physicists, ophthalmologists, accountants, mathematicians, retirees and others in caucus states. They recount their personal stories of threats, acts of intimidation, lies, stolen documents, falsified documents and much more. According to screenwriter/director Gigi Gaston, a Hillary supporter, “everyone turned a blind eye to thousands of complaints - at least 2000 complaints, in Texas alone. The DNC and the media chose to sweep this under the rug by looking the other way. It is as though they had their pick from the beginning and were going to make sure they had a winner. It is not that Hillary lost, rather how she lost that concerns me. What are my party’s principles, and why would they turn their back on millions of voters who cried out for justice?”

Viviano concluded, “I believe the leadership of the Democratic Party participated in the suppression of questionable, unfair, unethical, and sometimes criminal practices by the Obama campaign and disregarded thousands of complaints about such conduct in order to assure a victory by Obama in the Democratic Primary. Now Obama continues his thug tactics and no one says anything. The Chicago way is not the American way.”

The “30 Day Campaign for Truth” will include numerous nationwide press releases to at least 1,400 media outlets; presentations on numerous blogs; You Tube presentations; press conferences and a viewing of the documentary. Numerous groups including Cristi Adkins and Clintons4McCain.com, The NoOBamaProject.com, CitizenAdvocates.org, YouTube sensations Paul F. Villarreal and John D. Villarreal with Villarreal Media, and others will participate....

We Will Not Be Silenced The “30 Day Campaign for Truth”
Previews:
link to part 1
link to part 2
link to part 3
link to part 4

ACORN Files Voting Rights Suit on Behalf of Imaginary-Americans

"Participation in our electoral process is a fundamental right, and the foundation of our democracy," said ASDF ASDFG, a spokesperson for the National Association for the Advancement of Imaginary People, one of the groups named as plaintiffs in the class action. "We will not be silent when government denies people access to the polls on the basis of color, or sex, or existential status." ACORN Files Voting Rights Suit on Behalf of Imaginary-Americans...

..."Whether we are obituary notices, hallucinatory giant rabbits, or strings of random keyboard strokes, it's time for the chimera community to stand up and claim our rights as citizens," said ASDFG. "We will no longer be silent and invisible. Okay, maybe invisible."

In addition to $3.2 jubajillion in damages and free federal mortgages for homeless spectres, the suit also seeks enforcement of the Americans with Dimensional Disabilities Act. The Act requires voting places to make accommodations for existentially-challenged voters who have trouble completing ballots written in standard 3-dimensional reality. The accommodations include multiple site registration, time travel, and allowances for alcoholics to cast ballots for dependent D.T. phantasms....

Can you define "progressive"

"Progressive" is not a party. It is more akin to the John Birch Society or Moral Majority than to a political party. How do you define "progressive?"

Truths' out.

At the time there were denials from the Neely camp. Richard Marks adamantly stated that Bonnie Neely had gotten in bed with Richard Salzman. Getting re-elected was more important to her than anything else... As a guest-writer this week's Town Dandy, Eric Kirk proves Richard Marks was right on the money...
excerpt: ...Transcendence be damned. Nuances notwithstanding, most politics can be reduced to stereotypes of liberalism vs. conservatism. When I moved to Humboldt County in the ’90s, the ideological lines of the North Coast were clear and pronounced. Fresh on the heels of Redwood Summer, none of the politics surprised me. Rallies at Stafford. Tree sits. Pepper spray. “U.S. out of Humboldt County.” Wal-Mart. Marijuana. It all culminated in 2002 with the first election of Paul Gallegos as District Attorney, revealing progressive politics as a burgeoning force countywide, as conservatives dug in for a siege.

But the siege never came, and politics have never been the same.

At first the lines held strong. Bonnie Neely, longtime Republican pol and wife of the vanquished D.A. Terry Farmer, jumped all over Gallegos in the aftermath of the initial filing of the Palco suit. “You’re all alone,” she told him coldly at a meeting stacked by Palco employees who had circled the Courthouse in a demonstration with images reminiscent of the Chilean truckers strike, circa 1972 — as the Board voted to decline Gallegos leave to farm the case out to private counsel.

But then came the recall. Robin Arkley, Sr., ponied up five grand to prime the Palco cash pump. But then Arkley, Jr., no raving liberal, trumped him with 12 g’s to oppose the recall. Palco and its parent Maxxam threw down $85K for a campaign that went down in a thud with numbers so convincing that one has to assume at least a portion of the “old guard” had broken solidarity. Conservatives, who had not voted for Gallegos, and would not vote for him in the subsequent election, didn’t like recalls, or perhaps distrusted Palco more than they despised the upstart.

A minor, and perhaps fleeting, shift. But it didn’t end there.

Three years later Bonnie Neely embraced Gallegos at his reelection party. She also celebrated her own victory taking her to a runoff election with a fellow Republican, beating out the lone Democrat with the blessing of local Democratic Party activists. She was deemed the “liberal” candidate. In that same election moderate Republican Virginia Bass was elected Mayor of Eureka with the help of a progressive activist campaign manager (who had opposed Wal-Mart) on a de facto slate opposite Neely’s coalition, in which Neely informally caucused with unmistakable liberals like Larry Glass and Chris Kerrigan....

Let's not forget, only a short time ago, this is what Eric's camp was saying about Neely:
>On Friday, March 5, 2004, at 03:10 PM, Michael Twombly wrote:
>> Sacramento Insider Poop: Confidential
>> 1. Not too late to derail Neely appointment
>> Neely is all out for this appointment, balls to the wall.
>> Her support with Gov. Arnold comes from Tracy Walsh (wife of Danny Walsh and Maria S. chief of staff) and from Red Emerson (big $$$ to Arnold). Other than that, no support for Bonnie with Arnold.
>> 2. DA Recall could play BIG in Coastal Commission appointment (John W. A WINNER, Bonnie a loser.)
>> Gov's office is laughing over Maxxam/PL's stupidity and big loss; Flanigans are a joke; Obviously Reeps and Demos voted against Neely and the recall. Neely's star sinking. Let's help it. Tie Neely to Recall. Keep her losing.

Also: Looking back... One thing you do have to admit, Eric (and all of your "proggggrressive" camp - now that every single court that has touched Gallegos'/Ken Miller's wretched PL suit has tossed it for lack of merit, after the 1st Distrcit Court of Appeals laughed at Gallegos' arguments, after the Supreme Court refused his requests... you have to admit that the Board of Supervisors did the right thing in recognizing it for what it was, a piece of shit...

This Week's Town Dandy

Hey, remember "term limits"? That was the quaint little theory proposed and approved by California voters back in 1990. The idea was that the business of government would be wrested from sharpies and placed in the hands of a new breed of "citizen-legislator." These wholesome, Jimmy Stewart-esque superhumans would rise from the tilled soil to reclaim Sacramento on behalf of good, honest, hard-working people. And after six or eight years of service, just as his replacement became ready for harvest, the "citizen-legislator" would gracefully dissolve into thin air.

That was the theory, anyway. Things turned out a bit differently in practice. Last year, Tamara Keith of National Public Radio documented six separate cases in which a termed-out legislator sought to hand over his or her chair in the legislature to an immediate family member. And that was just in one election.

As anthropologists have long noted, here on the North Coast the Democratic Party apparatus serves as a ready substitute for flesh-and-blood kinship ties. The guillotine falls on Eureka's Assemblymember Patty Berg next year, but arrangements have already been made to pass her crown to former State Senator Wes Chesbro, who was termie-termed out of his seat in 2006. And Chesbro's seat, you'll recall, was given to Santa Rosa's Pat Wiggins, who was herself termie-termed from the Assembly in 2004.

You'll notice there's a wallflower at this waltz --Wiggins has the Senate seat locked up until 2014, denying Berg her patrimony. What's she to do? Well, it looks like homegirl is going for the big brass ring. That's right: She's going statewide. California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi terms out in 2010, and the hard-smoking Berg believes she has her opening. To that end, she's put together a little somethin'-somethin' called "Patty Berg for Insurance Commissioner," coming soon to a fundraiser near you.

The election may be three years away, but you've gotta start early if you want to muscle aside potential competitors. They may not be from the North Coast, and would therefore have limited understanding of the way public offices are traditionally inherited. Berg's war chest is looking pretty good right now, all things considered. In the first half of 2007, she's collected over $42,000, most of it in $500-$1,000 chunks from various medical groups and associations. (No dollars from any insurance companies yet.) Once she becomes the presumptive nominee, that small trickle of cash will come to dwarf the mighty Eel.

But Berg is out in 2008, unless a term-limit-busting measure making the rounds actually qualifies for the February ballot and passes. What's Berg going to do between 2008 and 2010? Here's a suggestion: How about the California Integrated Waste Management Board, a meat locker used by the powers-that-be in Sacramento to store politicos in transition. A seat on the board pays about $120,000 a year. Chesbro's not going to need his much longer.
_____

Closer to the horizon: The campaigns that are seeking to shift or maintain the balance of power on the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District have all come sputtering to life, only two months before the Nov. 6 election date. The issue is port development, and the idea that Humboldt Bay could be rebuilt as a container shipping facility and a waypoint on U.S. trade with Asia. The project faces massive, monstrously expensive hurdles, but the pro-port people (in this race, the two incumbents) have every faith those hurdles can be overcome. The anti-port faction -- or the "pro-reality" faction, as some of them like to say -- think that there's better things to do with our money and time.

Second District (Fortuna to SoHum) challenger Carlos Quilez was first out of the gate, with a press conference on the Eureka Boardwalk last Wednesday. Quilez pumped his credentials -- sport fisherman, Army veteran, retired California State University administrator. He played up his endorsements -- Humboldt-Del Norte Central Labor Council, Operating Engineers Local No. 3. He spoke of his vision -- "good stewardship for our resources and fiscal responsibility."

Meanwhile, across the aisle and on the other side of the county, the campaign apparatus of McKinleyville incumbent Charles Ollivier exited the gate strong, with a press release touting his endorsements -- Congressman Mike Thompson, three of the five county supervisors, three of the sitting Harbor District members, businessmen, union members, a tribal member, various McKinleyville-area elected officials. The press release didn't shrink from Ollivier's raison d'être as a district commissioner: the development of Humboldt Bay's shipping facilities, and the return of the long-dormant railroad line (see "The Squeeze," July 5).

Not much yet from Ollivier's challenger, fisheries biologist Pat Higgins, or from the incumbent Quilez is challenging, Fortuna's Roy Curless. Unless they pick up the pace soon, it could be a one-sided race in each of the districts. If the challengers gain only one seat, they'd still be left with the butt end of a 3-2 majority... Read the rest

Coastal resources?

An act to add Section 31410 to the Public Resources Code, relating
to coastal resources. INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Berg
AB 1568, as introduced, Berg. Coastal resources: Ma-le'l Dunes.

Existing law requires the State Coastal Conservancy to coordinate the development of the California Coastal Trail.

This bill would designate the portion of the Ma-le'l Dunes in Humboldt County that is part of the California Coastal Trail and that is under the jurisdiction of the conservancy as the Senator Wesley Chesbro Coastal Trail. The bill would require the conservancy to erect appropriate signage to reflect the designation and to cause all directories and other publications concerning the California Coastal Trail to reflect the designation as the publications are periodically revised.

IT PASSED.
Chesbro trail
The Times-Standard Article Launched: 06/13/2007 04:15:13 AM PDT
The state Senate Natural Resources Committee passed a bill Tuesday that would designate a part of the Ma-le'l Dunes as the “Sen. Wesley Chesbro Coastal Trail.”

The Ma-le'l Dunes, located west of Arcata, are part of the coastal dune system of the north and south spit of Humboldt Bay.

Chesbro represented the North Coast region in the state Senate from 1998 to 2006. He authored legislation to direct the State Coastal Conservancy to develop a California Coastal Trail action plan to be completed by 2008. Chesbro currently serves on the Integrated Waste Management Board

He previously was a Humboldt County supervisor and an Arcata City councilman. Chesbro has been a resident of Humboldt County for 28 years.

Assembly Bill 1568 now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Seems that our Senators would have something better to do with their time.

Chesbro Trail bill passes in Senate
Bill for Chesbro Dune Trail sent to governor