John Doolittle . . . however

Soon after his Virginia home was raided by the FBI, Rep. John Doolittle held a press conference in which he compared his plight to the unfairly prosecuted Duke lacrosse players and sounded unequivocal about keeping his job: "I would like you to know that I have no intention of resigning from Congress and I have every intention of running for re-election again."

But how firm is he? The embattled congressman and his wife, Julie Doolittle, are being scrutinized for their close ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Julie Doolittle's home-based company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, did fund-raising work for Abramoff between 2002 and 2004, earning a total of $67,000. The firm also raised money for Doolittle's PAC, earning a commission for the family.

At about the same time Doolittle (pictured with Laura Bush at a 2006 fundraiser) said he had no intention of quitting, he offered a distinct "however" to Sacramento talk show host Tom Sullivan:

"However it's - I really think we're going to have to see what happens in the remainder of this year. I understand that in order, as a practical matter, to run again, I'm going to need to have this question resolved that hangs over my head."

Mainstream Democrats have been fairly quiet about calling for Doolittle to resign - they'd rather have him wounded than dead. Democrat Charlie Brown came within 3 percentage points of beating Doolittle last year, in a Northern California district where Republicans have an 18-point registration advantage. A strong GOP candidate would make it even more difficult to unseat Doolittle.

But what happens if the GOP leadership asks Doolittle to resign, so they don't risk losing a Republican seat? Tom Ross, a political consultant with Meridian Pacific, said the district has a strong bench that includes state Assembly members Ted Gaines, Roger Niello, Rick Keene and Doug LaMalfa, as well as state Sen. Dave Cox. (Cox's office said he's not interested in running for the seat.) Ross also said Sen. Sam Aanestad, termed out in 2010, "represents a big part of the district and would get a lot of professional support from his friends in the dental community."

And finally, what about Sen. Tom McClintock? Ross said McClintock (pictured), "is rumored to be considering a run here from his Sacramento home even though he represents a district that covers Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties. McClintock is probably thinking that if Dan Lungren can re-invent himself as a Sacramento-area Congressman then he can too."

(Photos: Steve Yeater/AP; Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

Perata in minor car accident

Senate leader Don Perata has canceled his four-day Washington D.C. visit after minor car accident. He was not injured but is feeling a bit sore. More than a dozen other lawmakers are already headed to D.C. without him.

Alicia Trost, his spokeswoman, said Perata's car was rear-ended about 3:45 p.m. Friday on Interstate 880 while stopped in traffic. He was driving alone. "He did joke that the car was doing better than he was," Trost said. The accident also caused Perata to miss a press conference Sunday night at the scene of the collapsed freeway in Oakland, inside his district. Today is Perata's birthday.

The 4/29 conspiracies

Think that an exploding gasoline tanker caused the collapse of the Oakland freeway yesterday?

Think again. Maybe it was the terrorists. Or the oil companies. Or Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Find out more from Suitably Flip, where 9-11 conspiracy theorists will find comfort if they still believe exploding fuel can't possibly melt steel and rebar.

Here are some of the "facts:"

• The collapsed section of the interchange connects Interstate 80 to Interstate 580.
• It's Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires candidates for president to be natural born citizens, rendering Schwarzenegger ineligible.
• 8+0 = 8; 5+8+0 = 13; 8+13 = 21
• 580-80=500; 5+0+0 = 5
• 21 and 5
• Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 ... Coincidence?  Numbers don't lie.

Note to the clueless: this is satire.

(Photo: Noah Berger/The Oakland Tribune via AP)

What about the cows?

While California has been focused on what comes out of a car's tailpipe, much less attention has been paid to what comes out of a cow's rear end. California is one of the largest dairy producers in the U.S., and the "happy cows" that allegedly live on green-green hillsides flirting with each other also produce a lot of manure.

The efforts to control emissions from cows will offer an insight into how California regulators finally implement global warming regulations signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, and how much influence the agriculture industry has on public policy.

Cows contribute to global warming through the creation of nitrous oxide and methane. It's estimated that if all the manure created in California was converted in "methane digesters," it would generate 200 megawatts of electricity a year. That's roughly enough energy to power 200,000 homes - the city of Glendale, for example. It could go into cars as well. Students at Western Washington University have produced the Viking 32, for example, a vehicle powered by electricity and biomethane - cow manure (pictured below.)

But the California Air Resources Board, which must implement the global warming regulations, has put the agriculture's production of methane on a secondary list of priorities.

The influential board has three "early action" items - curbing emissions from tailpipes and the "non-professional" servicing of air conditioners, and increasing the capture of methane from landfills. The get-to-it by 2009 list is much longer and includes regulations on cow methane, cooler roofs, the electrification of ports and a host of other actions. The early action report is here, PDF.

Why the wait on agriculture? Carbon Control News today says officials want to make sure a new cap-and-trade system championed by Schwarzenegger is established before putting mandatory regulations on dairies that could "crush an emerging GHG credit trading program as well as an alternative electricity generation and biogas market through the utilization of methane digester technology. 'We don't want to destroy this emerging technology by mandating it too soon or setting unrealistic expectations for what it can do,' says a dairy industry source."

The Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, meanwhile, wants air regulators to mandate methane digester technology on dairies and require that cows to be housed in enclosed barns to "limit further enteric methane emissions." But, the newsletter says, methane from some California farms already is being credited and sold on the carbon trading market, and PG&E has reached agreements with some farms that supply methane power to the grid.

That's all for now. Amid Schwarzenegger's high-profile chest-beating over the new global warming regulations, California business is closely watching the fine-print regulatory action in Sacramento. In this case, the influence of California's vast agriculture industry will be something to watch during the next two years as the air board gets around to cows.

(Photos: Alex Wong/Getty Images; Damian Dovarganes/AP)

Hawking Schwarzenegger

American Express has announced that its members can get advanced tickets to the Economic Club of Toronto luncheon featuring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on May 30. The company said the $150 tickets go on sale today - to members only.

"Front Of The Line is an exclusive benefit available to all American Express Cardmembers, offering them access to tickets to the hottest events across Canada before they go on sale to the public. Already in 2007 American Express has provided Cardmembers access to advance tickets to over 50 theatrical shows, concerts and events, including The Stratford Festival, Russell Peters, Rush, Keith Urban and popular children's performers Hi-5."

Uh, now we're selling access to the governor for a $3.50 service charge? Schwarzenegger is scheduled to receive the 2007 "newsmaker of the year" award at the Economic Club of Toronto luncheon, part of a planned a three-day trip to Canada that is expected to focus on agreements between California and other states on global warming regulations.

Thanks for the boos

Hillary Clinton's boo birds at the California Democratic convention: "Mrs. Clinton isn't the first female politician to get booed onstage at the California Democratic Convention. In 1994 Dianne Feinstein, running for U.S. Senate against Republican Michael Huffington (Remember him? No, I didn’t think so), was widely booed on stage by the delegation for her support of the death penalty. She then turned around and used the footage in a campaign ad to promote her tough-on-crime position." Karen Hanretty, The Hill.

(*The booing actually occurred during the 1990 Democratic primary for governor, not 1994 campaign for U.S. Senate.)

Shutting down debate

The California Democratic Party convention this weekend left some progressive activists with a sour taste, after a procedural move late Sunday killed all debate on toughening up a resolution on the Iraq war. They left vowing to uncover who was responsible ... and study up on Roberts Rules of Order.

For insider-insiders, this is what the convention is all about. Activists said they put a lot of energy into a compromise resolution on impeaching President George W. Bush, which passed, while other issues fell by the wayside. dday writes:

"All of the energy put into the impeachment resolution took away from many of the other priorities of the Progressive Slate, priorities on which I ran - single-payer health care, clean money, election protection, net neutrality. None of these made it out of committee."

But on the floor Sunday, another resolution urged "President Bush to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and immediately begin the safe and orderly withdrawal of all United States combat forces." Amendments were offered that would "cut off funding totally for the occupation of Iraq, and another to de-authorize the legislation that took the country to war," dday says.

Then, someone called for a quorum. Since it was the end of the convention, many people predictably had already left the convention hall. No quorum, no vote. Calitics writes that "a lot of people are upset about this - there are people who are saying they expect parliamentary crap like this to be pulled by the Republican party, not by Democrats. A quorum is 1155, and there are only 623 delegates.  No more business can be conducted.  The convention is over."

Sunday also featured speeches by John Edwards, who entered the hall to a pounding hip-hop rhythm and took more than five minutes to work his way from a side entrance to the stage, the L.A. Times reports. "He received one of the strongest receptions of the weekend after delivering perhaps the widest-ranging speech. Bill Richardson delivered a looser, joke-filled address, lamenting at one point his low standing in opinion polls by referring to a conversation with his 92-year-old mother. When he told her he was running for president, he said, she responded, 'President of what?' "

Meanwhile, Barack Obama was at South-Central's First AME Church to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots yesterday. "There wasn't anything going on in Los Angeles that was unique to Los Angeles," Obama told the crowd, which featured singer Stevie Wonder. "If you traveled to Chicago, you would see the same young men on street corners without hope, without prospects, and without a sense of any destiny other than ending up in prison or in a casket."

(Photos: Lenny Ignelzi/AP; Denis Poroy/AP; Stefano Paltera/AP)

Disaster response

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a late-night visit Sunday to the site of a freeway collapse in Oakland, where a gasoline tanker truck crashed and exploded. The resulting fire and intense heat caused a 170-foot stretch of freeway interchange to warp and collapse on the freeway below.

The governor declared a state of emergency and said local public transportation agencies would be reimbursed $2.5 million to give free rides today.

The governor toured the site along with Mayor Ron Dellums, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and the secretary of Business, Housing and Transportation agency, Dale Bonner (pictured below).

Sunday's collapse is expected not only to snarl commuter traffic but also the flow of trucks to the busy Port of Oakland, one of the nation's largest ports along with Los Angeles and Long Beach, Tim Reiterman reports.

The mayors of San Francisco and Oakland said rebuilding could take months — and they braced for severe vehicle congestion Monday and for the coming weeks. "This will be one of the most problematic commutes in recent memory," Newsom told reporters at the Democratic Party convention in San Diego, before heading to Oakland.

(Photos: Paul Sakuma/AP;  David Paul Morris/S.F. Chronicle via AP)

Lou Papan, former assemblyman, dies

"Lou Papan, a one-man powerhouse in state and local politics, passed away Saturday night of an apparent heart attack. Mr. Papan, 78, of Millbrae died sometime between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m, said Margie O'Clair, a spokeswoman for the Peninsula Medical Center in Burlingame. ... Louis J. Papan, who had a portion of Highway 1 from Daly City to Pacifica named after him, served in the state Assembly for 20 years. He was chairman of the powerful state Assembly Rules Committee and the right-hand man of then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Mr. Papan had a hardball approach to politics that earned him the nickname 'The Enforcer.' " S.F. Chronicle. 

'The spy who billed me'

Blackwater USA, the private military firm with operations in Iraq, has proposed building an 824-acre training facility near San Diego. Lately, the company has been on a campaign to convince skeptical residents that Blackwater should be allowed to expand in California. That means the normally secretive former Navy SEALS and military men who created the company are emerging to talk about what they do.

R.J. Hillhouse, who operates a website about military outsourcing, scored an interview with Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater USA. Hillhouse has her own rather shadowy background, describing herself as a former Cuban rum runner who also "smuggled jewels from the Soviet Union and slipped through some of the world’s tightest borders. From Uzbekistan to Romania, she's been followed, held at gunpoint and interrogated. Foreign governments and others have pitched her for recruitment as a spy. (They failed.)"

Her interview with Jackson offers some insights for elected officials and the public in San Diego County who are considering Blackwater's expansion. She asks about Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA, described by journalist Jeremy Scahill as a "Christian supremacist" who wanted to create an army to defend Christendom. Jackson answers:

"First, we have no private army. What we do have is a team of military and law enforcement veterans and other motivated, capable Americans who protect diplomats, provide training, and offer logistic services, and we do those things in support of friendly nation peace operations around the world, including support of some of our Muslim allies. While I hesitate to discuss his personal life, Mr. Prince is a practicing Roman Catholic and I assure you is no radical.  His views, which others have inflated to serve their own agendas, are his own and he makes no effort to force them on anyone at Blackwater."

With affiliated "intelligence services," Greystone and Total Intelligence Solutions, Blackwater represents an "unprecedented concentration of military expertise and force in the hands of a private corporation," Hillhouse writes. He replies: "We evaluate clients through research and due diligence, we ensure they are legitimate actors who support freedom and security, and we only take on work that is sanctioned by the U.S. government."

The interview ends with Hillhouse asking if Blackwater is sort of like having a wolf as a housepet. Jackson replies by extending her metaphor. "A sheepdog is a more appropriate description. Indeed, there are wolves in the world and they plot every day to do harm to the peaceful sheep. The sheep want peaceful and productive lives and to live freely and safely with other sheep. Unguarded, however, the sheep, who are tolerant, are easy prey for the wolf. The sheepdog wants the same thing. He wants to freely and peacefully coexist with the sheep, but he has a developed capacity to protect against the wolf when necessary."

(Photos: Joon Powell/AP; John R. McCutchen/San Diego Union-Tribune via AP; )