Alberto Gonzales: "whacked like a piñata"

Syndicated columnist and member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board Ruben Navarrette Jr. has been fluffing up Alberto Gonzales a lot recently (March 7, March 21), so it should come as no suprise that he's continuing to shovel muck today in a special CNN commentary. What's shocking is the entirely new level to which he takes the insanity.

To be up front, there's a halfway legitimate point in all of Navarrette's mess, which is that accepting Gonzales as a scapegoat when it's the White House and Karl Rove behind this whole mess, is not a victory. I'm all for Rove paying for what he did as well. But he frames his whole argument in disgusting racist terms and tries to marginalize anyone who would have a gripe against "an honorable public servant ... [and] ... a straight shooter" by assuming that there's no way that criticism could be fair or justified.

He's good enough to give us a rundown of the people who object to Gonzales' performance as Attorney General and makes it pretty clear that the list at this point includes virtually everyone except President Bush. But apparently that's just because everyone is wrong, and most of them just hate a successful Hispanic.

Leading this lynch mob are white liberals who resent Gonzales because they can't claim the credit for his life's accomplishments and because they can't get him to curtsy. Why should he? Gonzales doesn't owe them a damn thing.

Yes, that's right. It's all those racist white liberals who insist on keeping minorities down and can't stand it when one of them gets power, It's because he doesn't genuflect at the altar of white people that he's hated. It can't possibly have anything to do with his actual job performance. Or his systematic evisceration of the Constitution of the United States. Which is, ultimately, where the racial argument breaks down horribly. Navarrette would have us believe that Gonzales can't possibly be getting criticism that's not infused with racist bitterness. But the flipside of this argument is that, because of his race, he gets a free pass. Well I'm sorry, but that isn't how it works. You do the job and you answer for your performance.

He also argues that Democrats just pose "with mariachis as they nibble chips and salsa on Cinco De Mayo" while the real uplifting of the Hispanic community, entirely and solely in the form of Alberto Gonzales, has been done by George W. Bush. While absurdly simplistic and not particularly based in any reality that I'm familiar with, it doesn't have anything to do with the firings of U.S. Attorneys.

It's telling that a Gonzales apologist wants to talk about anything except the issue at hand. Navarrette dispenses quickly and easily with the actual substance of the US Attorney issue by laying it all on Karl Rove, then whips up an emotional frenzy over non-issues, because he knows discussing the real complaints would be a losing proposition. Gonzales is responsible for the Justice Department, and has a long history of doing a poor job in that position. Perhaps Navarette has a point if his argument is that this incident, if isolated, would not be grounds for Gonzales' departure. But that dodges the crux of the problem. Alberto Gonzales became Attorney General in August of 2005, and in that time, the Justice Department has delivered less and less justice by the day. That is a failure of the job, and if this incident is the straw that breaks the camel's back, so be it.

The commentary closes with an ominous, if absurdly condescending in every direction, prediction for Democrats in 2008:

Well, if they succeed in running him off without a fair hearing, many Hispanics won't forget the shoddy treatment afforded this grandson of Mexican immigrants. You watch. Democrats will have to intensify their efforts to win Hispanic votes in the 2008 elections. And there's not that much chips and salsa on the planet.

It sounds to me as though the lesson being pitched here is that the color of Gonzales' skin is more important than the substance of his job performance whether you approve or disapprove of the job performance. Hispanics will quit the Democratic party en masse, Navarrette imagines, because Democrats aren't defending the country, they're attacking skin color.

If Gonzales wants a fair hearing, guess what? He can have one. In a revelatory change of course since January of this year (coincidence?), Congress will actually conduct legitimate investigations. All Gonzales has to do is show up and solemnly swear. Except, of course, that George Bush, the hero of racial equality in this story remember, doesn't want the truth to come out. Doesn't sound particularly helpful to the Gonzales cause to me. But then again, I see Gonzales as a man, not a color. Ruben Navarrette Jr. may want to try it sometime.

Jerry Sanders: The World Is Not Enough

As reported in the Union Tribune today and explained in an emailed press release from Mayor Jerry Sanders' office a few minutes ago, the San Diego City Charter is under review.  A Charter Committee has been established by the Mayor, headed by John Davies and Judge James Milliken, to review what Sanders calls "a half-finished job" of switching to a strong mayor form of city government as Sanders continues his work to expand the unilateral powers of the mayor's office.

"One of the greatest disservices that was done to our citizens last time was the rushed nature of the process," Sanders said. "I'd like to eliminate that this time and give citizens and interested stakeholders plenty of time to reflect on the issues."

According to the Sanders release, the committee will focus on "financial reforms; the duties of elected officials; fixes to the strong mayor system during this interim period; and considering making strong mayor permanent," which dovetails nicely with every squabble he's had with other officials in the city since taking office.

He's fought with the City Council over his ability to cut entire civic programs from the budget without council review (a decision on which has been delayed by Mike Aguirre).  He's driven out the city's auditor by insisting that the auditor be a mouthpiece for the mayor's office rather than an independent voice.  In short, he's really chafed over having to fight for his strong-mayor rights.

So he's got a committee together to figure out how to expand, extend and then make permanent the role of the Mayor as The Decider of San Diego.  The city council, if Sanders gets his way, will mostly be left as advisors and administrators of whatever the Mayor isn't interested in dealing with.  That Sanders has promised to support any recommendations from the committee suggests either good faith, or faith in the committee he assembled to deliver the recommendations he wants.

Council President Scott Peters ("It's...not an only-mayor form of government") has declined to commit blindly to the recommendations of the committee, but sounds supportive of strengthening the mayor, hoping for "ideas to finish the job" of transitioning to a new form of city governance.  Doesn't exactly sound like he's ready for a fight.  Councilwoman Donna Frye has fought well against Sanders over the budget cuts, but since the committee will also consider changing the number of seats on the city council and the number of votes required to override a mayoral veto, she could find her power to slow down the Sanders power grab severely curtailed.

It boils down to Sanders establishing a committee to conclude that he should have more power and people shouldn't be able to get in his way.  The perceived mandate from voters in support of the "strong mayor" form of government is checking too many members of the city council, clearing the road for Sanders to seize unilateral control of the city government.  Sanders said in his press release that he "will of course ask the Committee to comply with the Brown Act and ask that the public participate in the Committee's work."  I strongly recommend that people in San Diego take advantage of the opportunity to participate.  If you thought San Diego was corrupt and mismanaged before, just wait until it's a mayoral fiefdom.  Head it off while there's still time.

Walk to End the Wars

Last November, Bill McDannell was living in Lakeside, California. Today, he's walking somewhere near Dallas. In between, he's walked 1,000 miles, largely unnoticed and unappreciated, in opposition to the actions of this government. Four years after the invasion of Iraq, Bill McDannell is Walking to End the Wars.

At some spots along the way, the local media interview him, but he has yet to get any national exposure. He would like some, because more publicity would draw attention to the folly of the war, he says.

I don't know if it's possible for enough attention to be paid to the war and its effects, nor do I fail to understand that after four years, it's only natural to work within the context of the war; to move beyond the immediacy of the insanity. Indeed, that's the only way change is likely to come. But we can't hear enough about the people who take up this cause as their life's work, because without them, we'd all be lost.

McDannell says it best:

My name is Bill McDannell. I am a father of five and grandfather of four. I am a Vietnam era veteran and a former pastor of the United Methodist Church. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, I still firmly believe that, as a citizen of the United States of America, I have a voice in the activities of our country, and that my voice can be heard and can have an impact.

On Saturday, November 4th, 2006 I began to put that belief to the test. Mindful of my constitutional right to petition my government, on that date I left my home in Lakeside, California to begin a walk that will end in Washington, D.C. I am carrying with me a petition I intend to present to both the executive and legislative branches of our government requesting that we, as a nation, declare an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Along the way, he's collected about 1,500 signatures, and by my rough calculations he's about halfway to Washington, DC. To get where he is, he sold most of his possessions including his home and quit his job. Because he still believes this country is worth saving, and he can have a small part in that salvation. Yesterday many of us attended vigils to mark the anniversary of the war in Iraq. On this occasion, let's also remember some of those who are pushing forward every day to bring an end to this bloodshed.

Someday This War Is Gonna End: War Vigil San Diego

Cross-posted from Calitics

Like thousands of others across California and the United States tonight, I took part in a vigil protesting the continuation of the Iraq War. I was fortunate to have a protest just a bit down the road from me, with folks from Normal Heights, Kensington, and the surrounding area setting up shop on the Adams Ave/I-15 Bridge to catch rush hour traffic on the way home. I managed to arrive late, as I tend to do, but was still able to have a great time discovering that there's lots of hope, even in San Diego.

I don't get as involved in local San Diego action nearly as much as I would like, but I'm really hoping that one of these days (months), my schedule will magically start to line up with more opportunities. But in the meantime, when I get the chance to join in one of these events, it's even more exciting than it might otherwise be.

I was ultimately out for only about 45 minutes or so, but in that time, the response was amazing. The nearly continuous honking from rush hour traffic, the waves, the peace signs, the interested pedestrians were really encouraging. Granted, this neighborhood tends to be more progressive than many other parts of San Diego, but it's always good to recharge the soul with some public support.

My fellow attendees (vigil-antes?) covered many generations, and conversation ranged from impeachment (Bush, Cheney, Nixon) to Huffington Post to Obama to Kucinich and, yes, Calitics :). And the support we received from everyone going by was just as wide-ranging demographically. Colonel Kilgore once said of Vietnam "Someday, this war is gonna end." Tonight was a great opportunity for some optimism, despite the unfortunately somber occasion. I hope the mediocrity of my camera-phone pictures in twilight are compensated for in some small part my my words. This war will end. It's not in the papers, it's on the walls, and these are some of the people who are making it happen:





now BRING EM HOME!

Marty Meehan: Losing it, not Using it

Political Wire is relaying a report from CQ Politics that has Rep. Marty Meehan retiring from the House to become the president of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. The special election which would follow is not one of particular concern, it's a solidly Dem district. However, as of the last federal report, Martin Meehan has $5,119,677 Cash on Hand. Where's it gonna go?

You may remember Marty Meehan from the Use It Or Lose It Campaign, when he kept more than $4 million on hand when he could have transferred unlimited amounts to the DCCC. You may also remember his endorsement of an editorial calling the Use It Or Lose It campaign "a nasty shakedown by rotten political scoundrels." Now it looks as though that money wasn't even being saved for a rainy day. I don't know about you, but I can think of a few congressional campaigns that would've been a better use of that money than absolutely nothing.

So maybe Marty Meehan just had a change of heart and decided that academia was his true calling. Or perhaps he doesn't like the idea that he isn't about to become a Senator and he's packing up his ball and going home. First Matt Stoller threw down the gauntlet for Meehan, vowing to fight any Senate campaign. Then John Kerry decided maybe he'll stick around the Senate for a while anyways. So now that he can't buy himself a Senate seat with all the money that he's squirreled away, suddenly Meehan has better things to do with his time.

So here's Meehan's last chance if the reports are true and he's on the verge of retiring. If I understand the rules correctly, all of that money can still be transferred without penalty to the DCCC. Contact Marty Meehan and find out what he plans to do with the $5,119,677 that he won't be spending on another campaign. And ask him whether he still thinks that not wanting to waste money is still "a nasty shakedown by rotten political scoundrels." And if he's still so vehemently opposed to helping his party and his country, then it's been nice knowing you Marty, enjoy Lowell, and don't let the door hit ya.

Missing the Point of Missing the Point with Chris Reed

So last week, Chris Reed responded to my earlier piece in reaction to his complaints about the supposedly dishonest exaggeration of the health-care crisis in this country.  Atdleft has already made his voice heard on this, but I think there are a few other points that need to be made.

After his lead in about his high-minded tenacity in seeking out lies in any dark corner, he dives into the crux of his argument:

Oh, come on. Of course the distinction between U.S. citizens and non-citizens/illegal immigrants matters. Whether or not someone with a certain set of political views thinks it should matter, it does -- it's central to many policy debates.

It doesn't matter when you're trying to improve the state of public health in the country.  As I said in the first place, germs don't check citizen status.  This is much less a political issue (as which he tries to dismiss it) than it is a biological, medical issue.  So to start with the pragmatic side, I don't care if I catch the flu from a Mayflower decendent or a Martian, I'm still sick and I still wish they'd been able to go to the doctor before I caught something from them.  I won't run through (again) the reasons why people not getting sick is good for the country, but it is.  And if, as Reed says, this issue is central to many policy debates, then he isn't the only one missing the point.  I realize that extending health coverage to illegal immigrants is a political debate as much as any other, but in terms of understanding just how many people are walking petri dishes, it isn't an issue.

Next up is the neverending quest for truth:

So should our standard be that some misleading/dishonest/utterly deceptive statistics are OK in policy debates if they serve our cause and we believe we hold the moral high ground?

No way: Every time a fake fact becomes part of the discourse, it hurts the quality of the discourse. The ends don't justify the means, however noble the intentions of the deceivers or accomplices to the deception.

I certainly won't suggest that exaggeration or outright lying is ever acceptable in the media, or anywhere really.  But if this is really supposed to be the only point here...well...it isn't.  As I mentioned last time, "American" is not interchangeable with "American citizen" and as a result, his semantics lesson is poorly conceived.  If the concern is that the majority of people would presume the two to be interchangeable when receiving their news, I hope the suggestion isn't that the media has a responsibility to dumb down its level of discourse.

The point here isn't the noble or ignoble goals of those who may exaggerate information to promote a political agenda.  My point is that, at a certain point, a problem becomes so large that it's just too large.  The health care crisis in this country is such a problem.  The implications of Reed's complaints is that somewhere between 35 million and 47 million uninsured people in the United States exists a degree of seriousness that would alter the collective motivation to act; that somewhere between 35 and 47 million, the problem becomes big enough to demand attention.  I find this to be both distasteful and insulting, and if that's something he really believes, well...that's a pretty contemptuous perspective on Americans, whether citizens or not.

His response closes, as all indignant rants should, by trying to pick a fight and dismissing Calitics (presumably me specifically) as "just media junkies with unhealthy copy editor proclivities."  I suppose I'll disappoint him by not "foaming" over his attempted Iraq comparison.  I will, however, say that the discussion over whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is not the same as a discussion as to what the term "American" means.  In the former situation, the issue is whether a credible threat exists or does not.  In the latter, the issue is what to name the problem.  So if Chris Reed wants a metaphor, I'm afraid I'll have to reject his.  I'd compare it more to discussions over how destructive the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were during the Cold War.  Arguing over how many times over the world could be destroyed just isn't particularly relevant.  If you want to argue the facts, you of course can, but why would you think it was relevant to the discussion of how to prevent the world from ending?

So here's what it boils down to: Are the statistics which Reed complains about misleading? I don't think so, but he does.  Either way, does it change the relevant points of the health care debate in the slightest? No.  So we can discuss, I suppose, the best way to name statistics.  But if Chris Reed were to get his victory and all news outlets change the wording of their reports, then what? We still have 47 million people in this country without health coverage and we haven't spent our time trying to solve that problem, even in the slightest.  Yes, the media needs to be accountable and accurate, and by all means, let's continue to call them on inaccuracies.  But let's not for a second think that, the immediacy or gravity of the health care crisis in this country is, in any way, altered by how we subdivide the people who are suffering.

Missing the Point with Chris Reed: Libby's Bad and All, I Guess

In a shining example of the heights to which fair and balanced journalism aspires, Chris Reed yesterday reacted to the Libby Verdict by reminding us Libby may be a convicted felon, but that doesn't make Joe Wilson a hero.  He does at least have the decency not to "blame administration critics for crowing over Libby's trial at all."  He just feels as though lost in the midst of lying to federal investigators, perjury, obstructing justice, the premeditated release of secret government information, the falsification of intelligence reports to justify an optional war, torture scandals, thousands of dead American soldiers and marines, tens of thousands of dead Iraqis, increased terrorist activity and Middle Eastern instability, and the complete collapse of American credibility around the world, is the fact that Joe Wilson is, in fact, not a candidate for sainthood.  Once again, Chris Reed has missed the point.

Perhaps it's just that he has nothing original to add to the (woefully and horrifyingly) incomplete list above.  It's been well documented over the years(!), and I wouldn't be surprised if he's sick of talking about it or thinking about it.  In that regard, he's like most of us.  But glossing over it isn't going to accomplish much of anything.

Reed says that "[t]he bipartisan conclusion of the U.S. Senate is that when it comes to telling the truth, he and Lewis Libby have a lot in common."  The implication, of course, being that Wilson's exaggerations are somehow morally equivalent to the actions of Libby and the Bush administration as a whole.  Well Mr. Reed, there's this whole thing called degrees.

The Bush Administration and Lewis Libby set about to knowingly misled the American people, break federal law, and engage in actions that would result in tens of thousands of people dying violent deaths.  It amounted to a fundamental fraud perpetrated against this country by the executive branch of the federal government.

On the other hand, Joseph Wilson publicly and vehemently spoke out against this behavior.  Did he get some things wrong? I have no reason to doubt the Senate report.  But in a media populated by people like Chris Reed who need to be beaten over the head with overly dramatized truth before they'll pay it any attention, how else was he going to get noticed?

I'm not interested in making excuses or apologies for Joseph Wilson.  He is, in fact, no saint.  But when you stack him up against the villains involved in this case on the other side, he comes out smelling like a rose.  If Chris Reed really thinks that the relevant story of this verdict is anything other than the deceptive, vindictive, and criminal behavior on the part of the people leading this country, he needs to get his head of the sand and stop missing the point.

California Faculty Consider Marching

Faculty for Cal State schools throughout California will begin voting today to determine whether to walk off the job over grievances regarding pay, class size, and health care.  If approved by a simple majority, faculty would begin a series of rolling two-day walkouts statewide.  The voting process will last into next week with the results announced soon afterwards.

The California Faculty Association website offers all sorts of resources to further understand the history of this issue.  Included is a full rundown of the 20 months of bargaining between the CFA and the State, including lots of neat graphs, tables and statistics (which I know we all love).  Of particular interest to me was the graph showing that it's actually more lucrative to teach at community college than in the CSU system.

This comes at a time of exciting union activity throughout the California college and university system.  John Edwards appeared in Berkeley on Sunday and waxed poetic about the UC Berkeley janitors, saying, "This march for economic and social justice for the men and women who work at this university is a part of a bigger march in America for fairness and equality."

Covered at Surf Putah and cross posted here at Calitics last week, the Associated Students of UC Davis have voted to support the unionizing efforts of Sodexho employees on campus.

With the Employee Free Choice Act passing the House last week, big things are happening.  Via the link we learn that "one in five union activists can expect to be fired during an organizing campaign ... [and] 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could."  The link also comes complete with YouTube action from California's own George Miller.

Change is coming in a big way to the California education system.  Underpaid workers at the highest levels is just one aspect that's coming to a head right now.  At the local and state level, the fight over how the educational system is going to operate is being waged.  The battle today is how we'll treat the people who deliver knowledge.

The Paul Revere of 2008?

Is...Duncan Hunter?! Finlay Lewis suggests he's trying to cut such a path for himself. Hunter has been tearing up the campaign trail with anti-China rhetoric, warning of the threat faced by the United States if China is allowed to continue its arms buildup unchecked. I'll resist the urge to dive deeply into the idea that Hunter is yelling "the Reds are coming," but I do wonder if Hunter will have any impact in at least framing the debate on the Republican side.

It's pretty clearly explained in the Lewis article that Hunter's talk about China is simplistic at best, moronic at worst.

“Whether or not this would be a broader threat on the shape of where it could turn into a new cold war, man, we are nowhere near that yet,” said Robert Work, vice president for strategic studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Hunter's fans, including many with impressive economic credentials, counter that China is not simply being a good neighbor when it recycles its trade surplus by purchasing U.S. government debt. Instead, they say, it is part of a strategy of devaluing its own currency to make American products more expensive in global markets compared with Chinese goods.

Well being a good neighbor is what the United States is all about these days right? I mean really. Mostly so far, Duncan Hunter has gotten attention for his questionable relationship with campaign finance laws. But yesterday as I was leaving work I spotted this bumper sticker touting Hunter as "A Genuine Reagan Republican for America" and, quite frankly, shocking me. Even in San Diego, and even with his decent showing in South Carolina straw polling, is Duncan Hunter actually on his way to being relevant?

Obviously, this is a double-edged sword. He's nuts, which is bad if he actually gets any more power. But he's nuts, which means he'd be easy to beat. I can't see him being more than an asterisk when all is said and done, and I don't think many others can either, but what happens if he forces international belligerence into the Republican primary process?

Iran is already on the table apparently, as is (one would assume) Syria. I'm not sure what sort of plan Hunter is proposing in order to deal with Syria, but the whole "they're out-smarting us" position isn't particularly compelling to me (of course it isn't meant to be I guess). Pulling these issues to the right though, even in the primary process, would have ripple effects. It changes the political center of the debate, potentially moves someone like Hillary Clinton into a more hawkish place, and opens up wider lanes for pseudo-mavericks to manage the previously-physically-impossible end run right up the middle on these issues.

I'd be surprised, though I'd manage to retain my socks, if Duncan Hunter seriously made a run of this. I mean hell, his Progressive Punch score is friggin FIVE and that's not so good in an increasingly progressive country. But if people start taking his words and ideas seriously (even while dismissing him as a potential president) then we're gonna have a whole new slate of issues to fight back on. They may be absurd, but they'll take up time and be a distraction, and that certainly isn't productive.

"It's some word he made up"

Fabian Nunez yesterday took Governor Schwarzenegger to task for his behavior during the Governator's recent swing through DC.  "I certainly wouldn't come to Washington to tell people here how to do their job," Nunez said, on the heels of Schwarzenegger lauding the virtues of "post-partisan" politics.

"What he's talking about sounds good theoretically. I think in practical terms the way I read it is it's just semantics. Post-partisanship - what does that mean? I don't know. It's some word he made up," Nunez said.

"But I think he has a claim, in some ways, to that new term because last year we got a lot of things done. But you know we did it because we reached across the party aisle ... Remember, everything we got done were Democratic issues."

On the same day that post-partisanism was stung as little more than a combination of self-agrandizing deals with Democrats, Nunez is, in his own way, regaining some momentum here.  We need more of this, preferably more bluntly: Post-partisan is just Democratic issues broken by a Republican.  But it goes deeper than that.

If you want post-partisanship in action, this is it.  Schwarzenegger doing his best to look better than everyone else at every opportunity.  If you think Hillary is triangulating, she's a rank amateur by comparison.  Nunez's point, and it seems like a good one here, is that California really isn't so great that it's time to start lording it over people.  There's a lot of work still to be done, and a lot of help that either could or must come from Washington.  To take just one example, a new government study has determined that 90% of the National Guard is unprepared to to respond to crises, and that the current course is unsustainable.  So the governor goes to DC and what happens? 800 California Guardsmen and women get mobilized for the Iraq escalation.  Glad that Arnie "lobbied the president, members of Congress and cabinet secretaries on matters of importance to California."  Preventing death and suffering wasn't on the list I guess.

To extrapolate further, Nunez is setting an example that several presidential candidates could learn from.  Consistently and clearly drawing a distinction between what Republican leaders (say, George Bush) are doing and what a competent Democrat in the same position could, should and would be doing instead.  Yes, when it comes time for campaigning in earnest, you talk about moving forward.  When you're establishing the framework for a narrative of better governance coming from the Democratic Party in general, you point out the difference between Republican governance and effective governance.

While Schwarzenegger is bragging about how visionary he is and dropping names like Mahatma Gandhi, Edmund Burke and John F. Kennedy," it's Democrats who are actually doing the heavy lifting to improve California.  Post-partisanship is some word he made up.

SD City Council Caves to Sanders

It started five months ago when Mayor Jerry Sanders attempted to eliminate a youth swimming program and slash funding for the homeless.  Today apparently, a deal was brokered between Sanders and the two ranking members of the San Diego City Council to, effectively, give Sanders everything he could possibly want.

Council President Scott Peters and Council President Pro Tem Tony Young hammered out the deal with Sanders which, in effect, ensures that Sanders can't cut the ENTIRE government without approval.

The temporary agreement, which runs through the end of the fiscal year in June, requires Sanders to notify (not get approval from) the City Council if he decides to eliminate "any program or service affecting the community."  Further, it caps budget cuts at 10% or $4 million per department before the mayor needs to get Council approval.  And even then...would this City Council have the interest in standing up to his budget cuts in a real way?

So essentially, the City Council has decided to grant the mayor power to, if he wants to, cut 10% of the city budget between now and June with absolutely no oversight.  This doesn't sound like an agreement that protects anything from an "Only Mayor" form of government.  And it sure as hell wouldn't do much to protect youth swimming programs or funding for outreach to the homeless.  But at least councilmembers will get a memo about it as they watch their authority float away.  It's like they haven't been paying any attention to the ENTIRE Bush Administration.

Sanders said of the deal "If we had been locked up in an endless battle then the citizens would have been the ones who suffered from that." I'm not sure from where he gets the impression that caution when cutting governmental services or responsible legislative oversight is detrimental to the people, but he's apparently well stocked with enablers in the City Council.

Missing the Point with Chris Reed

Chris Reed has a post up this afternoon on his UT blog discussing the continuing "media error-a-thon" in regards to classifying those without health care in the United States.  His complaint is that there are not 47 million Americans without health insurance.  Rather, there are 47 million people in America without health insurance.  His gripe so much as I understand it is that immigrants, legal or otherwise, shouldn't be part of the health care discussion in the first place and that including them improperly legitimizes these people as Americans and artificially inflates the health care problems faced in this country.

The problem of course, is that this completely misses both the moral and practical point.  I'll dig into both of those on the flip, but let's make sure not to miss Reed's implicit point: Calm down, there are only 35 million people each year without health insurance.  No sweat.  I'd like to presume that Chris Reed knows better than all that, although the posts of his that I've read wouldn't suggest so.

The moral side of this discussion is simply that people who are sick or injured should be helped.  It's a price of the hose argument.  While opponents sensibly wag their fingers, admonishing that we can't save everyone, I'm reminded of The Constant Gardener.  We can't save everyone, but here are real people, right here, that we can help.  Nevertheless, I don't expect this to be the argument that holds much sway with Chris Reed or anyone else who dismisses the health care crisis as overblown or sensationalized.

The virtue of getting everyone onto health insurance is that it keeps people healthy.  Undocumented immigrants may get plenty of principled panties in a twist for any number of reasons, but in the meantime, germs don't segregate based on ethnicity or citizenship.  More sick people in a society is bad for overall health, it's bad for economic and educational productivity, it slows down our childrens' academic development.

We can talk about better enforcement of the border and we can talk about improving living conditions in the developing world in order to make staying put more palatable.  We can talk about just about everything in between.  But if Chris Reed is concerned that expanding health care coverage would make the United States too attractive a place to live, then I'm not so sure why he's hell-bent on defending the term "American."  If his point is simply a semantic one- that illegal immigrants shouldn't be counted in the number- then he is failing to grasp how health systems work and belittling the crisis of 35 million American citizens without healthcare.

He's not a fool when it comes to this stuff- he's written smartly about the problems with the Massachusetts plan, its implications in relation to Arnold's plan, and promoted the idea of insuring all children.  But splitting hairs of this nature amounts to quibbling over a match on a fire.  It fails to address the issue at hand or reflect the complexity of the issue from outside an anti-immigrant mindset, and deflects attention from the actual discussion that should be taking place.  It's divisive and unproductive, and if Chris Reed is serious about having a discussion about how to make health care work, this stuff needs to go away.

UFCW Grocery Workers take on Supermarkets

On March 5, The UFCW Grocery Workers' contract expires, and there isn't much sign that the UFCW and the store owners are nearing an agreement.  In 2003/04, grocery workers went on strike for four and a half months in response to contract negotiations reaching an impasse, a strike that had major repercussions for the market share of supermarket chains and cost an estimated $2 billion.  Ownership doesn't seem to have forgotten about that, despite the fact that most of that market share has been regained and, in certain places, surpassed.

The union's website, packed full of goodies, can be found here, outlining what they're up against, what they're doing, and why.  You can also sign the petition of support if you're so inclined, and find many other ways to get involved at the website or at the end of this diary.

The UT hit the high points of the situation recently, giving a solid rundown of the basics.  Albertsons (SuperValu), Ralphs (Kroger), and Vons (Safeway) account for about half of the grocery business in Southern California, and are stacked up against the 65,000 regional workers of the UFCW.  They're contending over wage and health care, but the crux of the negotiations is the two-tiered employment system put in place as part of the last contract.

Under the two-tiered system, workers with longer tenure get better pay and benefits, while newer workers are paid less and must work longer to become eligible for benefits.  The union argues this amounts to different pay for equal work and contributes to high turnover, and they're right on both counts.  While the stores are defending themselves by claiming that the market is increasingly competitive and they need to keep costs down, I wonder if they'll feel the same way when the current batch of tenured employees retire (they're getting up there from what I see at my local stores).

With all due respect to these stores, they have turned in billions in profits lately, and San Diego recently took steps to restrict the growth of big-box retailers.  And with the growth of CEO salaries, they aren't really presenting a very sympathetic picture.

The benefits of strong and healthy unions have been covered all over the blogs, I won't dive into it here.  But this is an opportunity for some solidarity.  Sign the petition, email corporate management, spread the news, share your experiences if you've worked in the industry, participate in their Text Respect drive, or any combination thereof.

"When the well's dry, we know the worth of water."

Ben Franklin stuck that in Poor Richard's Almanac 250 years ago.  These days, with both the literal water well and metaphorical financial well drying up in San Diego, Mayor Jerry Sanders is letting us know the worth of water.  And guess what? It's apparently worth much more in your house than it is at your office.

The Center on Policy Initiatives has released a (pdf) study analyzing the mayor's new proposal to raise the cost of water in the city.  This proposal is currently flying through its council appointment and shows little signs of being held up, much less stopped.  This is, primarily, because nobody disputes the goal of the measure- raise water prices to fix an antiquated and dangerous sewer system.  As is so often the case though, the devil is in the details.

Mayor Sanders has proposed raising water rates across the board to all types of property.  However, when all is said and done in these adjustments, CPI's analysis reveals that residential customers will be paying 30% more for their water than business customers.  In the process, it would target its rate hikes specifically on residential customers:  11.75% hike for single-family homes, 18.5% hike for multi-family buildings (apartments, etc.), and just 2.42% for businesses and industry.

So on the one hand, it's just working families getting the shaft in a city that's been giving them the shaft forever.  The upper class won't miss a beat, industry is fine, but low and middle class families get hit hard.  Aside from the urge to just write it off as Sanders being a jerk (he is, but that's several other stories), why does this make sense for him and/or the city?

San Diego has spent the past decade throwing itself headlong into luxury development.  Expensive high rise condos downtown, McMansion developments stretching for miles, luxury hotels on the coast to match the snazzy new convention center...they all conspire to push low income residents further out and suck in businesses who smell green blood in the water.  Jerry Sanders was ushered into office largely on his promises to speed up this sort of development, and he's done a pretty good job of delivering on that promise.

But now the real estate bubble is deflating, new condos have gone from the upper 200s to the upper 100s in a matter of six months, and the tax boost from new money is tapering off.  You've got people locked into the houses and condos they've bought recently, and they're much less apt to pack up and leave town during a downswing than are businesses who have profited from the economic boom.  The more stable (or trapped if you're a pessimist) side of the water biz is the residential side.  San Diego in general, and Mayor Sanders in particular, are no slouches when it comes to doing backflips for business interests.  There are grand designs for the interior extension of 125 that imagine it becoming a major industrial and manufacturing center for the region, with corporate jets flying into the refurbished airport and buckets of new revenue to bail out the fiscal disaster that is the San Diego budget.

San Diego is more than happy to take advantage of its working class because of the presumption that it'll always be there one way or another.  The cynical reality that nobody in the government wants to admit to is that as long as there's a never-ending supply of Mexicans coming across the border legally, illegally, or as commuters, the working class of this city and county is always going to be taken for granted.  The new water rates are just one more reflection of the skewed priorities in San Diego's government.