BOO!
Bob Morris @ Oct 30th 2003 00:35 - Category: Unfiled ;
BOO!
Happy Halloween a day early!
Which gives you time to circulate this photo to all your friends and startle them too!
Archive for October 30th, 2003
L.A. D.A. declines to prosecute…
Bob Morris @ Oct 30th 2003 00:28 - Category: Unfiled ;
L.A. D.A. declines to prosecute Mike Feinstein
Several months back I filed a criminal complaint with the Santa Monica police against Mike Feinstein, founding member of the California Green Party and current member of the Santa Monica City Council, concerning his disposition of a check for $10,000 made out to Green Party of LA County and deposited by him into his private bank account.
Lt. Mike Beautz, the investigating officer, spent “hundreds of hours” on the case. They got a warrant and pulled the bank records, then turned the case over to the D.A. The case went to the top, and yesterday LA DA Steve Cooley declined to prosecute primarily because the office in question had been, and still is, used for Green Party (GP) business and, crucially I think, because the GP knew about the check for 2 1/2 years and did nothing about it.
Oh, there had been countless rancorous meetings, endless email flames, and much factional warfare within the GP at the county, state, and national levels, but little action was taken until I forced people’s hand by filing.
DA’s wants easy kills. This case was not an easy kill, based both on what Cooley said, and also on the maddening vagueness of political contribution law which, by a bizarre coincidence, is written by the very same politicians who could get indicted under these laws. Beautz told me the laws on commingling political funds do not even specify whether it is a civil or criminal offense. Talk about loopholes…
Pondering all this some things become clear. First, the GP has serious structural problems that prevent it from taking action fast and decisively. The Reps or Dems would have dealt with this quickly, they would not have allowed it to drag on for years, causing serious, probably irreparable, problems, at the state and national level, as has happened in the GP. The problem, as I’ve discussed here before, is the GP insistence on consensus and decentralization, which, while noble in purpose, doesn’t translate much beyond the neighborhood meeting level. In practice, it means that controversial measures seldom get passed and major decisions take way too long to make. It also means, contrary to the intent, that the few can always block the many from acting.
I mostly volunteer with ANSWER now, where meetings are purposeful, free of rancor and internal factional battles. Let me repeat that - ANSWER, a hard left sectarian organization, has had no internal wars, or even serious squabbles, in the 14 months I’ve been volunteering - and I’ve been at steering committee meetings and helped organize multiple demos and dozens of smaller events. Given the fractiousness of the left, this is an almost bizarre rarity.
Why this is, I don’t specifically know. Many of the lead ANSWER organizers have been at it for decades, and their experience is invaluable. Also, ANSWER, as policy, will never publicly criticize an ally or coalition partner - even when attacked by one, and this ‘let’s focus on organizing, show solidarity, and avoid conflict between us’ viewpoint is reflected in the internal politics too. Also, we are generally doing several events at once and this emphasis on action means less time for squabbling. There’s something in the group dynamics of ANSWER that precludes internal bickering, and when I figure out exactly what it is, I’ll share it with you all!
This whole Feinstein affair has been quite an education. I made some enemies, found out who my real friends are and who will stand and who will run, learned that those who yell the loudest for action often are incapable taking action themselves - and much more.
Would I do it again? Absolutely.
The fires
Bob Morris @ Oct 30th 2003 00:17 - Category: Unfiled ;
The fires
I met with friends tonight. One has a home in Big Bear, the other in Lake Arrowhead. Both were in Los Angeles and don’t know if they have homes to go back to.
What do you say, what can you say? Words seem so frail here.
And this story is being repeated thousands of times today.
Dean Likely To Get SEIU…
Bob Morris @ Oct 30th 2003 00:16 - Category: Unfiled ;
Dean Likely To Get SEIU Nod
The Dean juggernaut just keeps rolling on.
“Howard Dean is about to take another huge step toward winning the Democratic nomination,” Ryan Lizza writes in the New Republic (link to come tomorrow). “According to union officials and aides to several campaigns, it is nearly certain that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will endorse Dean next week. This may sound like just another obscure piece of campaign inside baseball, but the endorsement could transform the race.”
Editor’s Note: I have now heard this same intelligence from several informed Political Wire readers in the last 24 hours. The endorsement is expected on November 6th. Rep. Dick Gephardt’s campaign is working frantically to get the union to delay the decision.
Wesley Clark lays responsibility for…
Bob Morris @ Oct 30th 2003 00:14 - Category: Unfiled ;
Wesley Clark lays responsibility for 9/11 at Bush’s feet
In a blistering review of President Bush’s national security policy, Gen. Wesley K. Clark said on Tuesday that the administration could not “walk away from its responsibilities for 9/11.”
“You can’t blame something like this on lower-level intelligence officers, however badly they communicated in memos with each other,” said the retired general, the latest entrant in the Democratic presidential field. “It goes back to what our great president Harry Truman said with the sign on his desk: ‘the buck stops here.’ And it sure is clear to me that when it comes to our nation’s national security, the buck rests with the commander in chief, right on George W. Bush’s desk.”
