Yacht Party

I recall an episode of the West Wing, where Sam Seaborn, Rob Lowe's character, chastised congressional Democrats for suggesting he pepper a presidential speech with what he considered cheap, caricatured attacks on Republicans as favoring tax breaks for yachts and swimming pools for the wealthy.

Well, not so fast, Mr. Seaborn. Apparently, here in California, the increasingly hard-line, ideological and flaky Republican caucus in Sacramento is refusing to address the yawning state budget deficit by closing a tax loophole for yacht purchasers.

The Courage Campaign, a network of progressive activists, wants to call the GOP out on this and is trying to rebrand the state GOP as the "Yacht Party." The organization is raising funds to help the following ad to get the message out:

Breaking: Marcus Allen Withdraws

Breaking News from LA City Hall: we've just been told by City Hall sources that Marcus Allen has withdrawn his name as the mayor's nominee for the city's top fiscal post.

In March, Villaraigosa nominated Allen, his former deputy chief of staff, to succeed Karen Sisson as Chief Administrative Officer. Widely respected in many circles for his work in the city for more than a decade -- including work for Villaraigosa, City Controller Laura Chick, and the office of the Chief Legislative Analyst -- Allen's nomination still ran into trouble.

The CAO is responsible for the city's multi-billion dollar budget, labor relations, and debt management. It is considered the highest non-elected position in city government.

Allen's nomination was vigorously opposed by the Los Angeles Daily News, which warned of a revolving door between government and lobbying. (He went to work for a lobbying firm when he left Villaraigosa's office.) He was also opposed by a few councilmembers often opposed to Villaraigosa, including Councilwoman Jan Perry.

Word at City Hall is Allen withdrew his name over money. Sisson makes about $220,000. Allen demanded $290,000. Those who opposed Allen used the salary issue as political cover to scuttle the nomination.

Winter Soldiers

The Congressional Progressive Caucus will hear testimony tomorrow from nine members of Iraq Veterans Against the War as part of "Winter Soldier" hearings examining the ongoing problems with the U.S. war in Iraq.

According to the veterans group, "Winter Soldier on the Hill will allow the US Congress to be more fully informed about the situation in Iraq through soldiers’ eyewitness accounts of the on-going military occupation, while they debate (more than likely for the last time during the Bush-Cheney administration) the funding for U.S. military operations in Iraq."

The hearings start at 6 a.m. PST. CSPAN3 will broadcast the hearing live. If you don't get CSPAN3, you can watch it on the CSPAN website. Or you can listen on Pacifica Radio 90.7 FM, KPFK.

On Pins and Needles

Tomorrow at 10 a.m., the California Supreme Court is scheduled to announce its ruling on the issue of gay marriage here in the Golden State.

Will California follow in the footsteps of Massachusetts and become the second state to legalize same sex marriage? According to this post at Towleroad, many observers think so.

Regardless of what the court decides, the City and Lambda Legal–among others–will be staging an event in West Hollywood at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and San Vicente at 7:00 PM.

On his blog, Andrew Sullivan waxes typically eloquent on the import of the moment:

"Those in favor of civil equality better get ready. The gay civil rights movement will never have waged a battle this big, this expensive or this important. We can win at the ballot box as well as in the courts and legislatures. And the good news is that the Republican governor has said he will oppose any initiative to take marriage rights away, if they are granted. Hold on tight."

America's Shame, Continued

The Washington Post continues its week-long series on the U.S. government's disgraceful treatment of immigrants being held in detention. I mentioned the first part of the series earlier this week. Today's installment reveals that many detainees are given psychotropic drugs against their will:

"The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

"The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane."

and . . .

"Such episodes are among more than 250 cases The Washington Post has identified in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003 -- the year the Bush administration handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security's new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

"Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes. The practice is banned by several countries where, confidential documents make clear, U.S. escorts have been unable to inject deportees with extra doses of drugs during layovers en route to faraway places."

Renters, Revolt!

The website www.angryrenter.com gives appropriately angry voice to the plight of those of us who rent, and can't fathom why elected officials keep chipping away at renters' rights while rushing to bail out homeowners who gambled on risky loans.

Renters make up 32% of the national population and a whopping 60% of the people who live here in Los Angeles. But we have a disproportionately small voice in government, especially here in Los Angeles, where elected officials tend to take their marching orders from either developers or homeowners.

I'll have more on the plight of LA renters -- and the statewide assault on rent control -- in future posts, but right now I want to draw attention to Angry Renter, which has collected 46,000 signatures urging Congress to stop the bailout of homeowners and house flippers.

Madame Speaker

Today California made history. Assemblywoman Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, took the oath of office as Speaker of the Assembly -- the first African-American woman to lead a state legislative chamber in U.S. History.

Karen Bass rocks -- in every way. She is progressive, smart, eloquent, passionate, creative, hard-working, focused, and a lot more. The fact that Karen can serve only one more term is a proof of the stupidity of term limits. Given a choice, voters would surely elect Karen again and again and again.

Karen, 54, is no lifetime pol. She was elected to the Assembly in 2004 after years as a community organizer in South Los Angeles. A physician's assistant raised in the Venice-Fairfax area, left the medical field in the early 1990s to try to find solutions for drug addiction, gun violence and other social ills she witnessed in treating emergency room patients. The nonprofit group she founded, the Community Coalition, helped limit the number of liquor stores that reopened in South Los Angeles after the 1992 riots.

Karen is also a state co-chair for the Barack Obama campaign.

More coverage at the LATimes and LAist. The text of her acceptance speech is here.

Not Your Father's Graffiti

Thanks to LAist for the news that an international exchange called LA Goldrush brought graffiti artists from Italy to Los Angeles. On Sunday, they visited the Venice Art Walls. LAist photographer Tom Andrews spent some time with the visiting artists in both locations and documented what happened.

Stroll down to the beach and check out the walls. The artists rotate every week, so it is a living, ever-evolving canvas for a beautiful and under-appreciated form of art.

Man Candy

One of my favorite blogs is Towleroad, a daily collection of LGBT news and information, with a sprinkling of photos of hot guys. So, many, many, many thanks to Andy Towle for bringing to my attention rugby stud Danny Cipriani.

Justice for Janitors

In a major victory for organized labor in Los Angeles, a potentially disruptive and high-profile strike by the janitors union has been averted, with custodial workers in Los Angeles County winning higher wages and better benefits.

Joined by janitors, leaders of SEIU Local 1877, business owners and members of the City Council, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today that management and labor reached a broad agreement for workers in Los Angeles County, and are making progress on negotiations for workers in Orange County.

Los Angeles County janitors won a tentative agreement that would boost total compensation nearly 25 percent over the life of the contract. Janitors won wage increases of more than $1,000 a year every year over the life of the four-year pact for a compounded total of $10,000 per janitor. Janitors will continue to receive full employer-paid family healthcare, a pension, and, for the first time, will receive vision coverage. Janitors working on the outskirts of the county will be able to move into higher-paying buildings and earn better benefits based on seniority, once the contract is ratified.

Today’s announcement comes just days after the janitors voted overwhelmingly to approve an unfair labor practice strike. The janitors began staging walkouts May 7 after round-the-clock contract negotiations broke down. After a day of walk-outs Villaraigosa intervened, asked for a cooling off period, and brought both sides back to the negotiating table.

When negotiations broke down last week, the cleaning companies and their corporate clients had refused to adequately raise wages for janitors who clean some of the most expensive office buildings in the entire country. The contractor’s proposal would have forced the majority of union janitors into second-class status, which was unacceptable to the janitors’ union.
The tentative agreement for Los Angeles county will begin to bring those janitors out of second-class status and raise wages from $22,256 to $26,728 a year by the end of the four-year pact. Janitors that work in downtown and Century City will see their wages jump from $24,960 to $29,328 a year when the contract expires, April 30, 2012.

SEIU Local 1877 represents 20,000 janitors statewide. The union won national recognition in 2000, when they staged a three-week work stoppage that drew national political figures, including former Vice President Al Gore and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. That strike helped galvanize immigrant workers across the nation and was considered a watershed moment for Los Angeles labor.

Who is a Gang Member?

Just who is a gang member? What is a gang affiliation? How does a child go to public school in many parts of Los Angeles without knowing a gang member? Does that constitute "gang ties"?

Witness LA, an excellent blog about crime and social justice issues, examines those questions by looking at the case of Jamiel Shaw, Jr., the 17-year old high school football star who was gunned down by a gang member outside his home in March.

The local media has jumped all over this murder, advancing the storyline that the young victim was the ultimate Good Kid, victimized by a gang member. Over the past few days, news has leaked that Shaw made some gang references on his myspace page, prompting some to question whether he was really was the Good Kid, and subtly suggesting that gang ties would have made his murder slightly less tragic. (Surely, it would have caused the media to give it less attention.)

The truth is this: for most kids in LA, life ain't that black and white. As the Witness LA blog post illustrates, it is murky, gray, and all too dangerous. There is no straight and narrow; just a windy, bumpy, hazardous road.

Little Evil vs. The California Kid

MMA Junkie previews what will be one helluva fight: Jens "Little Evil" Pulver versus Urijah "The California Kid" Faber -- a June 1 bout that will be the most significant fight ever under the WEC banner.

Pulver, 33, the first guy to hold a lightweight belt in the UFC, dropped down to 145 lbs, and joined the WEC after losing round two of his grudge match with B.J. Penn in the finale of season 5 of the Ultimate Fighter. He will face Faber, 29, at the Arco Arena in Sacramento in fight to be aired free on Versus cable.

These are two tremendous warriors. Faber, not as well known since he fights in a lower-profile organization, may be one of the most talented mixed martial artists in the world. He is currently the WEV's featherweight champion. He has excellent takedown and submission skills, is freakishly fast, and is a joy to watch (as is, generally, the whole featherweight division.)

Pulver has a great and heavy left hand, is a skilled grappler, and is an intelligent, dogged, csrappy well-conditioned fighter. But while he is an MMA legend, he never seems to get as much respect as his opponents, whether it is Faber or Penn. He is the underdog in this fight.

But I'm rooting for Pulver. The guy has more heart than almost any other fighter I have seen. He has overcome a harrowing biography that included unspeakable abuse at the hands of his father. (His life story is detailed in Little Evil: One Ultimate Fighter's Rise to the Top).

He is a good soul, and when you root for Pulver, you root for the underdog, for humanity, for the guy who gets knocked down in life, but always insists on getting back up. Jens Pulver is why I love mixed martial arts. He is the the best of the sport.

You can catch some video clips of interviews with both fighters here.

President Gore

Over at the Huffington Post, Norman MacAfee dreams about what America and the world would be like if the U.S. Supreme Court had not voted in George W. Bush as president.

The Coming Civil War

Blogger Chris Crain (aka Citizen Crain) posts about the coming battle over gay marriage here in California -- a battle the ACLU calls "the single most important battle we have ever seen in the LGBT rights movement."

Chris is right. Within weeks, the state Supreme Court could legalize gay marriage -- and voters may face a referendum changing the state constitution to officially and categorically ban it.

Given California's size, this will be a political earthquake, a battle that will draw the attention of the nation, especially since it will coincide with the presidential election.

America's Shame

The Washington Post runs a story this morning that provokes justifiable anger and shame at the U.S. government's failure to overhaul immigration laws, chronic inability to manage its bureaucracies, and continued neglect of civil liberties.

The Post conducted an investigation that showed people are literally dying of neglect in the nation's immigration facilities.

Here are some relevant excerpts:

"Some 83 detainees have died in, or soon after, custody during the past five years. The deaths are the loudest alarms about a system teetering on collapse. Actions taken -- or not taken -- by medical staff members may have contributed to 30 of those deaths, according to confidential internal reviews and the opinions of medical experts who reviewed some death files for The Post.

"According to an analysis by The Post, most of the people who died were young. Thirty-two of the detainees were younger than 40, and only six were 70 or older. The deaths took place at dozens of sites across the country. The most at one location was six at the San Pedro compound near Los Angeles."

And we're not talking about accused terrorists:

"The detainees have less access to lawyers than convicted murderers in maximum-security prisons and some have fewer comforts than al-Qaeda terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"But they are not terrorists. Most are working-class men and women or indigent laborers who made mistakes that seem to pose no threat to national security: a Salvadoran who bought drugs in his 20th year of poverty in Los Angeles; a U.S. legal U.S. resident from Mexico who took $50 for driving two undocumented day laborers into a border city. Or they are waiting for political asylum from danger in their own countries: a Somali without a valid visa trying to prove she would be killed had she remained in her village; a journalist who fled Congo out of fear for his life, worked as a limousine driver and fathered six American children, but never was able to get the asylum he sought."

These victims are kept in the shadows, barely receiving even bureaucratic lip service toward the concept of due process:

"These way stations between life in and outside the United States are mostly out of sight: in deserts and industrial warehouse districts, in sequestered valleys next to other prisons, or near noisy airports. Some compounds never allow detainees outdoor recreation; others let them out onto tiny dirt patches once or twice a week.

Detainees are not guaranteed free legal representation, and only about one in 10 has an attorney. When lawyers get involved, they often have difficulty prying medical information out of the bureaucracy -- or even finding clients, who are routinely moved without notice."

The tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe are dying from willful neglect on our watch.

The article I link to is part of a series running in the Post this week.