The "netroots" - progressive bloggers - are in an uproar over California Rep. Jerry McNerney's vote on the Iraq war. Democrat McNerney, who defeated Rep. Richard Pombo last year, voted to reject a bill in Congress that would have set a 9-month timetable to end the Iraq war. From Calitics:
"It seems pretty clear that many people in the netroots who worked hard
for Jerry, donated time and time again are pretty upset with the new
Representative today. Heck, even Ellen Tauscher found a way to vote to
get us out of Iraq today.
"No Representative will ever be perfect, especially those in more
moderate districts. But this was a vote of conscious today and
McNerney failed that test. I think all those who walked those
precincts, threw Jerry fundraisers and made calls on his behalf deserve
an explanation for his vote today."
McNerney issued a statement today saying he voted his conscience. "I want an end to the war in Iraq. But ending the war must be done in the most responsible way. ... I feel strongly that ending the war must be done in a way that
respects our soldiers, honors our veterans, provides the best chance to
reduce the violence in Iraq, and prevents the violence from spreading
to neighboring countries."
Lisa Vorderbrueggen over at the Contra Costa Times says the vote shows McNerney's tough spot: "The exchange illustrates the conundrum that McNerney faces as he heads
into his re-election campaign: He's a Democrat in a Republican-leaning
district. That means the GOP will hammer him mercilessly on his liberal
voting record at the same time that progressives who have supported him
demand his fealty on their core issues such as opposition to the Iraq
War."
(Photo:
Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP)
Kate Soglin is the newest reporter to cover the presidential race. So far, she has discovered the job is "as fun and satisfying as buying Manolo Blahniks
at a seventy percent off sale and eating pancakes right
afterward. ... You don't need to be a pundit to cover politics.
You just need to look cute and ask questions and have a
camera to record stuff."
Soglin took her probing questions to the California Democratic convention. She learned from a political consultant that a well-run campaign needs to come from the bottom up, not the top down. For some reason, Soglin heard him say she needed to have her top down and her bottom up. She then headed to Malibu, just like Barbie. CitzenKate.
In this instant meta world, it only took about three seconds for someone to report on Soglin herself, and about nine seconds for a blog posting of the Soglin reporting to appear on another blog reporting on other blogs.
Spencer Critchley noticed Soglin at the Democratic convention, and said she "prefaced her questions for
candidates with variations on 'I don't know a single thing about any of
this.' She managed to both embody and mock the airheadedness of young
citizens manqué as she helped them discover the non-me world, while
also poking at the self-importance of Citizen Kane-style Big Media."
Political Muscle understands you're probably not going to believe this post since it comes from the mainstream media. But just look at the facts for a second.
We now have three websites - three - devoted to proving the April 29 crash that melted an Oakland freeway was a false flag operation by the government. Or someone. Or Ikea. Or whatever.
Just listen: If a person takes the time to create a website, isn't that proof enough?
Today, a connector linking the busy interchange is scheduled to open after rapid repairs, proving that Caltrans is not incompetent. But that won't end the controversy. How was it possible for exploding tanker fuel to take down such a massive steel-and-concrete structure? It seems impossible - especially since there are so many unanswered questions about the World Trade Center.
Bay Area drivers should beware something else is going on ... something that can't be proven just yet. Some more facts about the crash from 429truth.com:
- "The 'gas truck' which allegedly destroyed the overpass was never recovered by emergency workers. For the first time we have a crash with no vehicle."
- "The driver, an immigrant named 'Mosqe-Queda,' claims to have no recollection of the crash and claims to have somehow bailed out of a flaming tanker and ran away at full speed while unconscious, an explanation that strains all reasonable credibility.
"Someone within the state or federal government chose to give someone named Mosque-Queda with an extensive history of arrests a hazardous materials license that some say he should have never been given." [Snip.]- "The photograph supposedly depicting a mushroom cloud over Oakland was retracted
two days before the Oakland Tribune published their story, yet the
picture was presented as known fact and our retraction is not
mentioned?"
But I happen to agree with another website, since it has authoritative photographs of Swedish meatballs on the freeway right after the attack, er, collapse. Next to freeway interchange is a massive Ikea store.
IKEA Did 4/29 - "Exposing the truth of the Swedish conspiracy" - hasn't quite grasped the meaning yet, but I have one theory: the collapse rerouted thousands of customers through surface streets next to the Ikea in Emeryville, forcing them to make a pit stop for some delicious popenluden and nuudelmunche.
Can you deny it?
(Photos: Bryan Carmodi/AP; Mosqueda family via AP)
Capitol press association approves its first blogger credential.
 Karen Hanretty is a Republican political consultant, Fox News and MSNBC commentator, and blogger. Given the national viewership of Fox News and MSNBC, Hanretty could arguably claim a press credential from the California Legislature. When she appears on TV, Hanretty has a far larger "news" audience than anyone else regularly offering perspective on the state Capitol.
But Hanretty isn't interested in a legislative press pass. She won't apply for one, even though she joked: "I want a credential so I can ask (Speaker Fabian) Nunez at every single press conference why he's such a whore for the unions."
 Hanretty's case (and her impolitic language) is emblematic of the growing complexity of political reporting and the challenges faced by the government and press associations over media access. More and more "news" is being produced by partisan forces - a new army of 18th century pamphleteers with 21st century technology.
Wednesday, the Capitol Correspondents Association, which advises the Legislature on who should be granted a press credential, announced new rules that would effectively allow some bloggers into the media family.
But the credential comes with caveats: no conflicts of interests with lobbying or the Legislature, and the reporter or blogger must receive at least 50% of his or her income from the news media. This credential is important because it provides access to secure areas of the Assembly and Senate chambers, and to some Capitol press conferences.
The press association voted 34-3 to approve the new credentialing standards, which will be forwarded to the Legislature.
"Really all we are doing is seeking enough information to determine whether or not there are conflicts of interest," said Steve Geissinger, president of the Capitol press group. Nobody will be asked for their IRS return to verify income, he said, but bloggers could lose their credentials for lying on an application. He said the association board had worried that by expanding the number of credentials, "We could have 200 bloggers and turn news conferences into circuses."
Space is not really a problem, however, because ...
Read on »
District attorneys in California have started their own blogs to counter media coverage deemed "unfair." Prosecutors call it a public service, but should taxpayers fund this? Read about it here.
We hear political columnist Dan Weintraub just signed a contract with PoliPoint Press to write a book about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A recent tour through the beta site of Google Books showed nearly 1,000 tomes that mention Schwarzenegger, but only a handful have examined him in honest detail and with style.
Weintraub will look at Schwarzenegger 3.0 - his efforts to push the Republican Party to the left and tap into the huge class of undeclared voters. He'll undoubtedly have to look at the disillusionment of true believers and activists in both parties, and what post-partisanship really means.
Political consultant Rob Stutzman, who used to work for Schwarzenegger, reminded me recently of a Weintraub post from the 2003 recall election, "The Woman In Red." Weintraub had the first real blog for California politics, and the mysterious appearance on the campaign trail of a woman in a red top - just after the groping allegations against Schwarzenegger emerged - provided another surreal moment in that astonishing year.
Read his posts from that day.
This week, Weintraub went behind the wall.
From now on, you have to pay for his blog. The Sacramento Bee
is sequestering much of its political coverage under a paid service
called Capitol Alert. It's probably where we're all going. That Classmates.com ad on this blog isn't going to pay for my salary, for example, not to mention our staff in China, Iraq and around the world.
The Sacramento Bee has more on the progressive political bloggers seeking to infiltrate the California Democratic Party through elections last week. "The state party is largely composed of old buddies who get together to socialize every once in a while, with most meetings being poorly attended and little business getting done in them," says one 18-year-old high school student who is running. That's the point this blog made Thursday, but a few earnest types totally freaked out! Also: I'm a blogger too, so I can make light-hearted fun of bloggers. It's in the rules.
 UPDATE: Dan Ancona says the Democratic party is getting energized: "The almost entirely unchecked power of special interests, the noise of capitalist society, and snarky disaffected despair like Mr. Salladay all work against them. But large and growing numbers of people are making the choice to rebuild the American democracy anyway."
I happily come from a leftist-hippie family (see photo of my wood-fired hot tub -- it's semi-liberal), so I know from where progressives are speaking. But I am struck by how progressives feel the California Democratic Party establishment doesn't represent their views. Universal health care? State Democrats did it. Same-sex marriage? Done. Raise the minimum wage? Multiple times. Global warming? Toughest standards in the nation. Challenge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and protect unions? They destroyed Schwarzenegger in 2005. For the most part, the problem has been Schwarzenegger's vetoes, not Art Torres.
For progressives, the deepest problem is the abandonment of true Democratic Party ideals when it comes to challenging the Iraq war (and another federal issue, immigration, to a lesser extent). That anger has perhaps prompted the attempted revolution inside the California Democratic Party today -- even if the Democratic establishment here has been pretty aligned with progressives.
I can't quit you, Commie Girl.
OC Weekly's Rebecca Schoenkopf speaks her mind again. This time she takes Commie Mom to watch the Schwarzenegger-Angelides debate. Remember the debate? It's worth revisiting that horrendous pileup from, like, a thousand years ago just to get her partisan view: "Listen: there are actually some things about Schwarzenegger I respect. I like his deal making, I think he's a masterful triangulator, he does work with Democrats (to the howls of the GOP, who don't seem to get he's the governor of the whole state, not just Orange County) and I like that he actually flip-flops instead of staying the course....
"But in this debate, Schwarzenegger looked sweaty and sounded like an idiot. (His one good line, while being harangued by an aggressive Angelides, was that he felt like he was at dinner with 'Uncle Teddy.' Angelides murmured back with delight, 'If only my grandmother could hear me being compared to a Kennedy!')
"Angelides looked dorky and sounded like a smart, funny, energetic Democrat — when he wasn't being cut off by the dastardly Statham."
 This 22-second video on YouTube of Arnold Schwarzenegger casually walking through Central Park with his entourage has been viewed nearly 7,000 times. The group includes bodyguards, his personal assistant and the manager of the governor's blind trust, Paul Wachter, walking to Schwarzenegger's left.
But this "Arnold Rave" video appears to be the most popular of all, with various YouTube versions getting more than 840,000 views on the website. Now I know why Google is spending $1.65 billion to purchase YouTube. I don't know what it says about how people view Schwarzenegger.
(Photo: YouTube)
 A certain very bald employee of Arnold Schwarzenegger (be careful guessing who it is — there are at least five fitting that description) has complained that Political Muscle may occasionally lack substance. That hurt!
Therefore, just to show how serious this site really is, Political Muscle offers these links to YouTube videos about Arnold Schwarzenegger. (This is called retaliatory irony.)
Arnold goes to Stallone's house.
Arnold and Ally McBeal.
Arnold Skit on Mad TV.
Lots more here.
It's part of a campaign called FlunkArnold.com that launched today and encourages college students to produce videos of Schwarzenegger in a negative light. The producer of the best video gets free tuition for a year at any CSU campus and his or her video aired as an advertisement on "The Daily Show."
This is a union campaign run by the California Faculty Assn.
(Photo: FlunkArnold.com)
In case there was any confusion (thanks Kos, Atrios and Drum) about an earlier post, the Public Policy Institute of California presented a very pessimistic view of the state's voters. The first line of my posting was nothing more than a play off the cliché: Good news for people who love bad news. This report is bad news about California. Enough said.
Read the whole posting and read the report.
Political junkies in California will love the brand new, just-released California Voter Foundation's guide to the 2006 election. It's a good place to get basic information about candidates, propositions and campaign finance. The site is run by my neighbor, Kim Alexander, who plays a mean guitar and keeps her lawn real nice.
Can the MSM run a political blog? It seems contradictory to the spirit of blogging — autonomous, independent, often pedantic and fiercely opinionated. But I see Political Muscle as a tool to bring readers the remarkable world of California politics outside the physical boundaries of the printed newspaper.
 Because this is a political blog, readers will look for bias in every post. I can tell you my bias right now: a good story. I can relate to Republicans, Greens, libertarians and Democrats alike. I was raised by a hippie mother and dragged to communes as a young boy. I spent the weekends with my Republican father, a strait-laced engineer. I am a member of the fastest-growing political party in California: independent.
 Look for a variety of posts here: short news analysis, scenes from the campaign trail, snippets of audio, funny items, good catches from other blogs and newspapers, fact-checking on ads and speeches, and live blogging from debates and big events.
My job will be as a reporter — to find news. I may get fussy once in awhile, but the site will strive to remain fair. It will be a journey — with heavy emphasis on Schwarzenegger and Angelides for the next two months — through California's uncommon political world.
(Top Photo: Chris Carlson / AP)
(Bottom Photo: Nick Ut / AP)
Here are some links to some other stories and blog entries that caught my eye:
- "Big muscles attracted easy sex. Female groupies were easy lap lovers, always ready when the master called. And he did call — often. Aside from bodybuilding, sex was the next most forceful energy of his gang. No escapade was too daring." Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle gets the interview.
- Arnold's big pen. Jon Fleischman over at the California conservative buffet, the FlashReport, is keeping a running tally of 20 "really bad bills" that Schwarzenegger should veto. He's batting .050 so far.
- Angelides' big endorsement by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gets upstaged by a fainting girl. Should Phil have acted? Does Antonio wear a cape under his suits? The Times' Duke Helfand looks back in a reporter's notebook.
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The "netroots" - progressive bloggers - are in an uproar over California Rep. Jerry McNerney's vote on the Iraq war. Democrat McNerney, who defeated Rep. Richard Pombo last year, voted to reject a bill in Congress that would have set a 9-month timetable to end the Iraq war. From Calitics:
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