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CRITICAL VOTE FOR CLEAN MONEY COULD BE THIS WEDNESDAY!

Please send a free fax to State President pro tem Don Perata asking him to do everything he can to help pass AB 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act, today!

http://www.CAclean.org/write- senate.php

Senator Perata has heard the outcry for a change in the way we finance election campaigns and stated strong public support for AB 583. As he said:

"Currently, the system is weighted to favor those who have the greatest access to financial resources. We need to fix this problem."
Time: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 9:30am PST

What: Hundreds of RNs Rally for Clean Money
When: Tuesday May 9, 1 pm
Where: State Capitol, East Steps

The rally will be preceded by a march, which will leave the Sacramento Convention Center (13th St. @ J St.) at 12 Noon and end at the Capitol lawn.
Time: Tuesday, May 9, 2006 - 1:00pm PST

Confessions of a Repentant Republican

"I supported George W. Bush in the presidential election in 2000, believing then that he best reflected my love for America and for our tradition of liberty. I supported the war in Afghanistan. In March of 2003, I believed that the invasion of Iraq was justified based upon pre-war revelations presented to Congress and to the American people. Acordingly, the indictments contained herein apply, first and foremost, to myself.

Diogenes searches for an honest man and walks right past ...

Fixing The System:
A Conversation About Money In Politics

Confirmed Panelists:

State Senator Debra Bowen
Chair, Senate Committee on Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments

Paul H. Turner
Senior Program Manager, Claiming Our Democracy, Greenlining Institute

Christopher M. Witko, Ph. D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Government, California State University, Sacramento

Sarah Einowski
Regional Field Organizer, Democracy Matters

Do campaign contributions and other forms of money influence the decisions that our elected officials make and if so, how? Can anything be done about it? How might public financing of elections affect California governance?
Time: Monday, April 3, 2006 - 6:00pm PST

... we weave when we practice to deceive.

Talking Points Memo

Is Rep. John Doolittle's free ride ... coming to an end? I think it might be.

Capitol Weekly News

"About Schmidt: Gov.'s campaign manager pulls in $78,000 in just six weeks
By Shane Goldmacher

After less than two months on the job, Gov. Arnold Schwarenegger's campaign manager Steve Schmidt has been paid more than $78,000 in campaign funds." ... read more

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Who is Steve Schmidt? (Pay attention to the date below)

The Whitehouse sent muscle to California today

Dailykos

Molly Ivins: Enough of the D.C. Dems
Enough of the D.C. Dems
By Molly Ivins
March 2006 Issue

Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Amen, Reverend. Click the pic

Meet the Real John Doolittle ...

"In his big blue Ford F250, Rex Bloomfield coasted down out of the foothills, following a loaded logging truck west through the two-lane curves of Highway 193 between Newcastle and Lincoln. Bloomfield, a third-term Placer County supervisor, wore sleek-looking sunglasses, jeans and a short-sleeved dress shirt. With the truck, he easily could have been mistaken for one of many builders and developers at work in the county. Instead, Bloomfield is a grade-school teacher in Auburn -- and, as an elected leader, he belongs to a vocal minority that believes the county's unchecked development is making Placer County an unattractive place to live.

I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President
by Molly Ivins

I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

Democrats Took No Money from Abramoff. Don't let them tell you otherwise.



Click the picture then scroll down to watch the video.

I think they should convict ANY congressperson that was illegally involved with Abramoff, Dem or Repub. This corruption is sickening. Let's hope the net is wide enough to get Doolittle.
-Bill

Abramoff Pleads Guilty, Will Cooperate
Jan 3, 7:33 PM (ET)
By MARK SHERMAN and CURT ANDERSON

WASHINGTON (AP) - Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who spawned a congressional corruption scandal, pleaded guilty Tuesday to three felonies and pledged to cooperate in a criminal probe edging closer to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

"I plead guilty, your honor," Abramoff said in flat, unemotional tones, accepting a plea bargain that said he had provided lavish trips, golf outings, meals and more to public officials "in exchange for a series of official acts."

Drug companies' PAC gives big after Schwarzenegger's vetoes
By TOM CHORNEAU, Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 11:52 am PST Friday, March 11, 2005

SACRAMENTO (AP) - For more than a decade, a trade group representing the nation's biggest drug companies was content to sit on the sidelines of California's legislative races.

Why did Dean choose to refuse federal matching funds for his campaign?

President Bush has already refused federal matching funds for his own campaign and has amassed $200 million dollars from $2000-a-plate dinners for wealthy and corporate donors. It would be unfair for Dean to have to restrict himself to the much lower fundraising cap required by federal matching funds. To level the playing field, Dean chose to rely on his supporters, working Americans with their average donation of $77 per person, to compensate for the $19 million that he must turn away.

These answers were developed by Shelley Shaver, Coodinator of the Sacramento for Dean Issues, Policy and Rapid Response Volunteer Campaign Team and are not endorsed by or affiliated with Howard Dean or the Dean for America campaign, www.deanforamerica.com.

An agenda for real Campaign Reformsize>color>

Take Back Our Democracy -- Dean for America

The health of a free nation can be measured by public confidence in the integrity of government institutions. By that measure, the United States is in crisis. Americans sense that their leaders are not listening to them. A mountain of evidence has proven them right.

To a stunning degree, our fellow citizens are convinced that politicians are for sale to the highest bidder. At the same time, millions of Americans are disenfranchised by faulty voting technology or rendered irrelevant by a rigged redistricting process. Convinced that their vote does not count and that they cannot change the status quo, too many Americans have given up on our democracy. They no longer vote or otherwise participate in the civic life of the nation.

The relentless arms race for campaign cash and accompanying scandals contribute to the perception that elected officials are more concerned with their own political fortunes than with the problems of ordinary people. 74% of the public believes that politicians sometimes vote the way their big contributors want them to — regardless of whether that vote is what their constituents want or the best thing for the country. The public is right.

Big money corrupts public policy. Secret internal documents subpoenaed from both major political parties in litigation earlier this year revealed the many ways in which the political parties explicitly trade favorable laws for campaign cash. For example, in 1999, the chairman of the Republican National Committee sent the chairman of Bristol-Myers Squibb a copy of the Republican health care package with a request for suggested changes and in the same letter asked for a $250,000 donation. “We must keep the lines of communications open,” he wrote, “if we want to continue passing legislation that will benefit your industry.”

Not surprisingly, wealthy special interests are the high rollers in this pay-to-play system. 96% of the most active political donors have incomes over $100,000. These donors constitute an exceedingly narrow, unrepresentative slice of America — 82% are male, 92% are white. If money is a form of speech, as the Supreme Court has regrettably found, rich donors will always be the loudest speakers.

Abraham Lincoln declared that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth. But today special interests, not people, control the levers of public policy through campaign cash. Ours has become a government of the money, by the money and for the money.

Last year, public disgust at the influence of money in politics led to enactment of the McCain/Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. I supported that law because we needed to stem the rising tide of “soft money” — the vast, unlimited and unregulated checks from corporations and wealthy Americans that purchase access and influence. In the coming weeks the Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of that law, and I very much hope it will be upheld.

But even if McCain/Feingold survives, there is so much more to be done. The skyrocketing cost of campaigns, driven largely by the cost of radio and television advertising, still forces candidates to spend too many hours every day raising unprecedented sums from the wealthiest Americans and special interests, rather than listening to ordinary voters. Left out are the vast majority of citizens who contribute the small amounts they can afford — or who do not give at all.

The basic machinery of our elections is also in sorry shape. Florida 2000 taught us about butterfly ballots and hanging chads, but the problems exist throughout the country. Entire communities — disproportionately minority and working class voters — find themselves disenfranchised by the same decrepit voting machines that recorded Eisenhower’s election. And too often, political hacks have successfully schemed to suppress the votes of citizens of color.

At the same time congressional redistricting has become an incumbent protection racket, reducing the number of competitive House elections to a mere handful. Tom DeLay’s recent tactics in Texas are only the most blatant example of political gerrymandering that breaks up communities and disenfranchises minorities.