So, Jeff the Elf, you want a culture war? Let's get it rolling!

The Kebler Elf's evil twin, Attorney General Jefferson Beuregard Sessions III, came to Sacramento on Wdnesday to insult and threaten them thar California cultural elite librul types.

He didn't bother making a courtesy call on the Governor of California. Who is not an enemy that either Jeff or Trump should really be inviting to challenge them on national news platforms.

Jeff the Evil Elf took his shot with a xenophobic show in Sacramento, Suing California, Sessions vows to ‘use every power’ to stop state laws on immigration enforcement PBS Newshour 03/07/2018.

Jerry Brown responded, CA governor and atty. gen. discuss sanctuary cities PBS Newshour 03/07/2018:

Among other things, he says in that press conference:

Look, this is completely unprecedented for the chief law enforcement of the United States to come out here and engage in a political stunt, make wild accustations, many of which are based on outright lies, that's unusual.

And particularly for a fellow from Alabama talking to us about secession and protecting human and civil rights.

He and state Attorney General Xavier Becerra also did an interview with Margaret Warner, Gov. Jerry Brown: Sessions 'sowing discord' instead of proposing immigration reform PBS Newshour 03/07/2018:

In his last year as Governor of California, Jerry Brown is still out there fighting for civil rights and the rights of immigrants, a major theme of his entire political career. In this interview we see Jerry the formidable debater and former Jesuit seminarian who has never had any problem about applying his religious values to politics. Trump and Jeff Sessions didn't really understand, I'm sure, what they were getting into with this latest stunt. Some of Jerry's comments in this interview (Gov. Jerry Brown: Sessions ‘sowing discord’ instead of proposing immigration reform transcript PBS Newshour 03/08/2018):

[Jeff Sessions is] going after men, women, and children, some who have worked 10 or 20 years picking our food, washing our dishes, building houses. And, yes, we need an immigration reform for the whole nation. We don’t need a Gestapo-kind of tactic with vitriol spewing out of Jeff Sessions’ mouth.

What we need, Jeff Sessions, propose an intelligent immigration reform, and we will work with you. But don’t come out with these kind of gutter tactics, bring some of your really discredited politics from your background here. It’s just not right. It’s not generous, and it’s not Christian."Sessions is in a cesspool of deception and mendacity. So, don’t believe him.

Sessions is in a cesspool of deception and mendacity. So, don’t believe him.

I call upon Mr. Sessions and Mr. Trump to act like Americans, act like the good Christians they claim to be, and work with us to get a good immigration law, and not to try to just hyperbolically scare the hell out of people ...

This face-off between California and Washington has some interesting historical echoes. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is a smirking prick who could have stepped right out of a White Citizens Council convention in 1961. Jerry Brown has been an active supporter of immigrant rights and farmworkers for pretty much his entire life.

Harold Meyerson writes about an even older historical echo in There Are Echoes of the Fugitive Slave Act in Today’s Immigration Debate The American Prospect 03/06/2018:

An 1842 court ruling absolved states of any duty to cooperate in the recapture of former slaves who'd freed themselves by fleeing to the North. In response, as part of the Compromise of 1850, the Congress passed and President Millard Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act, which not only required state and local governmental officials to aid owners and their agents who'd come North to capture and re-enslave the runaways, but also required the same level of cooperation from all citizens. If a slaver was in the act of recapture, bystanders were required to help out.

Not surprisingly, the North greeted the new law with fury and resistance. Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Michigan, and Wisconsin all enacted “personal liberty laws”—the 1850s equivalent of California's sanctuary state law—forbidding public officials from cooperating with the slave owners or the federal forces sent to back them up, denying the use of their jails to house the captives, and requiring jury trials to decide if the owners could make off with their abductees. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the Fugitive Slave Act violated the Constitution's 10th Amendment, which gave states the power to enact laws not specifically preempted by federal authority. (The Southern-dominated U.S. Supreme Court overturned that ruling on the eve of the Civil War).

Opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act also took to the streets (and jury rooms, where verdicts were rendered that freed some of the captives). Crowds would form to oppose and resist, sometimes forcibly, the apprehensions of African Americans. [my emphasis]

After the Confederacy's defeat in the Civil War, unreconstructed white Southerners created a neo-Confederate narrative that, unfortunately, is very much a part of the white nationalist narrative currently dominant in the Republican Party. And a key element of it was the false claim that the Confederate states had seceded from the Union in 1860-61 over the abstract issue of States' Rights, and not, oh Lordy certainly not over slavery!

That's because slavery by 1865 had become so completely discredited in the whole country that the former Confederates wanted to try to distance themselves from it. The Fugitive Slave Act is one of the major reasons we know that postwar claim was nonsense. I mean, apart from the fact that the seceding states made it as clear and explicit as they could that they were seceding over slavery. Or, as Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens described it in his Cornerstone Speech in March of 1861:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [from human equality]; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

For the decade prior to the election of Abraham Lincoln, the major conflicts between the slave and free states associated with events like the Compromise of 1950, the mini-civil war in Kansas, and the Dred Scott decision involved the Slave Power using its domination of the federal government to impose pro-slavery measures on unwilling free states.

The reliable if stodgy Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and its repercussions this way (Fugitive Slave Acts 01/17/2018):

The demand from the South for more effective legislation resulted in enactment of a second Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Under this law fugitives could not testify on their own behalf, nor were they permitted a trial by jury. Heavy penalties were imposed upon federal marshals who refused to enforce the law or from whom a fugitive escaped; penalties were also imposed on individuals who helped slaves to escape. Finally, under the 1850 act, special commissioners were to have concurrent jurisdiction with the U.S. courts in enforcing the law. The severity of the 1850 measure led to abuses and defeated its purpose. The number of abolitionists increased, the operations of the Underground Railroad became more efficient, and new personal-liberty laws were enacted in many Northern states. These state laws were among the grievances officially referred to by South Carolina in December 1860 as justification for its secession from the Union. Attempts to carry into effect the law of 1850 aroused much bitterness and probably had as much to do with inciting sectional hostility as did the controversy over slavery in the territories. [my emphasis; internal hotlink omitted]

For the secessionists of South Carolina, the unwillingness of state governments to knuckle under to an atrocious proslavery federal law which really did encroach of the Tenth Amendment right of states was a grievance to be used as a justification for treason and secession.

Jerry Brown's latest move about climate change

Jerry Brown chose the day of the G-20 Summit to announce a climate information event, both highlighting the issue and tweaking Trump's pro-pollution position.

Katy Murphy and Patrick May report Jerry Brown one-ups Trump on climate change with G20 announcement San Jose Mercury News 07/06/2017:

As President Donald Trump and other world leaders gathered in Hamburg, Germany, for the G20 summit, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday made waves by telling the world that Trump — who has decided to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord — does not speak for most Americans when it comes to dealing with environmental concerns.

Then Brown announced that California would host a global summit on climate change in San Francisco for September 2018.

“Yes, I know President Trump is trying to get out of the Paris Agreement, but he doesn’t speak for the rest of America,” Brown said in a video message shown to tens of thousands at the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg. “We in California and in states all across America believe it’s time to act. It’s time to join together, and that’s why at this Climate Action Summit we’re going to get it done.”

In the video below, he says, "Look, it's up to you and it's up to me and tens of millions of other people to get it together to roll back the forces of carbonization and join together to combat the existential threat of climate change." As Governor of California, Jerry actually officially represents tens of millions of people. Global Climate Action Summit 07/06/2017:

Jerry has been very explicit in opposing Trump pro-climate-catastrophe policies:

Brown has waged a public campaign to counter Trump since the president declared in June that the U.S. would pull out of the 2015 Paris accord reached by nearly 200 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Brown traveled to China, warning that “disaster still looms” unless governments around the world take urgent action. On that trip, Brown predicted that Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord would prove to be only a temporary setback, thanks to firm commitments by China, European countries and individual U.S. states to pick up the leadership role vacated by the president.

The article also quotes Jerry as saying, “President Trump, he’s going off the reservation hopefully for a month, a year, not much longer. ... If he stays on his present course, California will just redouble its efforts and the people of the world will have to rise up and take action. And I think in a very paradoxical way, that’s exactly what Trump is stimulating — the very opposite of climate denial is climate activism.”

Nancy Pelosi and the New Deal/corporate split in the Democratic Party today

Joy Reid of MSNBC's AM Joy is a reliable defender of the Democratic establishment. Given the current mood among the party's base voters, even Establishment Democrats have to put on a convincing show of partisanship right now. If the Obama years are any measure, as soon as corporate Democrats win back the Presidency, they and their media supporters will revert to defending the weakest "bipartisan" compromises that cater to Republican conservatives as three-dimensional chess that is part of a very clever long game to someday, somehow, start achieving the sort of things that Democrats put into their official primaries.

This segment from this week, Why Are Democrats Attacking Nancy Pelosi? AM Joy 06/26/2017, deals with progressive criticism of Nancy Pelosi:

I'll confess again to being a bit of a Mugmump on the issue of replacing Pelosi as Democratic House leader. On the one hand, it probably would be a good idea to have a Democratic leader in the House who is not so identified with the Democratic politics of the Bush and Obama Presidencies. But as Jamal Simmons observes, Pelosi by most accounts has been effective in her job as Democratic House leader.

As a national spokesperson for the Democratic Party, I've been disappointed in the lack of clarity and focus that has sometimes affected her in interviews in which she was defending Democratic positions. But that's not a problem that affected her in her weekly news briefing today, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi holds news briefing PBS Newshour 06/29/2017:

But she also has the huge advantage of being a literal "San Francisco Democrat" from a safely Democratic district. That was and is a welcome departure from the long-standing Democratic approach of selecting top Congressional leaders from competitive districts, apparently on the theory that their ability to appeal to swing voters would be particularly helpful. But, as Pelosi herself is shown saying in the AM Joy segment, the Republicans are going to make a boogeyman (or woman) out of any Democratic leader. The Republicans just don't share the Democrats chronic desire to pursue "bipartisanship." Charlie Pierce gives his take on Pelosi's leadership in Okay, So You Kick Nancy Pelosi Out. Then What? Esquire Politics Blog 06/21/2017.

Joy begins the segment by calling Democrats who advocate a new House leader "haters and critics." She sets the segment up on the premise that Republicans demonized Pelosi's image, and now (progressive) Democrats have been naively suckered into carrying water for the Republicans' anti-Pelosi position. Joy cites as a major example of Pelosi's value to the Democrats the fact that she appointed Rahm Emmanuel to lead the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) during the 2006 eleciton cycle. Rahm is the poster-boy for the corporate Dem position, famously telling advocates of the public option for health care in 2009 that they were "f***ing retarded." (Was Rahm Right? In These Times 04/06/2011) Ryan Lizza wrote about interviewing Rahm in his office when he was Obama's first White House Chief of Staff, "I noticed that over his left shoulder, on the credenza behind him, was an official-looking name plate, which he said was a birthday present from his two brothers. It read, 'Undersecretary for Go Fuck Yourself.'" (The Gatekeeper New Yorker 03/02/2009).

As a sideline, I would note that if the ACA (Obamacare) had included the public option that most Democrats wanted and which Rahm so memorably condemned, it would almost certainly have been more popular than it clearly is now, less vulnerable to Republican Governors' sabotage, and more durable in the face of the current Republican efforts to repeal it. Although I'm relieved and a bit pleasantly surprised as how durable it's turning out to be in the first half of 2017.

The AM Joy segment features four guests: former RNC Chair Michael Steele, Nation journalist Joan Walsh, actor-commentator Jamal Simmons and Roll Call's Michele Bernard. Three of the four join with the host in ridiculing the idea of Democrats replacing Pelosi as the House leader. Joy doesn't probe Michael Steele's dubious-sounding claim to be a master of strategic branding who fought successfully against other Republicans to make Pelosi a major image of the Democratic Party. He even says he got them to focus on making Pelosi the main target of their attacks instead of Barack Obama. (Say what?!)

Simmons mentions vaguely that the Democrats need a stronger identification with economic issues. None of the panel, including Joy herself, gives much attention in this segment to the substantive criticism that some progressives have made, not least of which is that she's too much a part of the corporate-financed model of politics that has metastasized since the Citizens United decision in 2010.

Joan Walsh, after 10:00, says:

The whole battle in the party right now, which is a false battle in my opinion, but it's there, between 'identity politics' - so-called - and class politics, that's being fought here too, but in ways that people won't say. Because Pelosi is a associated with gay marriage, being from San Francisco, but also being staunchly for it. She's associated with feminism. She's associated with these things that certain elements of the party think should be downplayed to appeal to white men, white, you know, rather than focusing on the base of our party, which is women, and particularly women of color.

I often quote Joan's analysis, usually with approval. But that particularly comment is one that bothers me. In fairness, her target isn't entirely clear in the brief time she had to speak. The segment featured criticism of Pelosi from Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, who unsuccessfully challenged her in the House for her leadership position. And Ryan has stressed a particular approach to criticizing Pelosi.

Ryan has a strong prolabor voting record in Congress. Jim Newell reported on Ryan's campaign for the Democratic leadership in Tim Ryan Wants to Make the Democrats Great Again Slate 11/29/2016:

Ryan, who describes himself as “feisty,” has turned more aggressive in recent days. Though Ryan has criticized the party for prioritizing appeals to “subgroups” over a central economic message, his volleys against Pelosi veer close to an identity politics of his own—Make the Democrats Great Again—that relies on hackneyed imagery such as the beer drinker on Steel Street. “This election’s not going to be won at fundraisers on the coasts,” he told the Wall Street Journal, “it’s going to be won in union halls in the industrial Midwest and fish fries in the Midwest and the South.” Ryan also told me that his relative youth would serve the party well with millennials. (Ryan, 43, is not a millennial.)

The “union hall” thing did not sit well with Pelosi. “I’m not going to pay attention to, ‘I can’t step in a union hall.’ I’m a woman of steel in there,” Pelosi told the Huffington Post on Tuesday. “I’m constantly invited by the unions to go to their meetings. That’s just not, it’s just not true.” She also mocked Ryan for not being able to carry his district for Hillary Clinton, and she described his complaint that her proposed internal reforms would only strengthen her grip over the caucus as “pathetic.”

Back circa 1990, the major ideological fault line in the Democratic Party was understood to between traditional liberals of the Ted Kennedy/Walter Mondale mode and Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) that embraced neoliberal economics and hedged on "social issues" like abortion and even anti-discrimination issues. Bill Clinton was the embodiment of that approach. Any such broad distinction is inevitably oversimplified. The Republican were more than happy to portray Clinton as a flaming leftwing radical who was a wimp in foreign policy. And the labor movement nad the most prolabor Members of Congress were the bedrock of the defense of Clinton in the impeachment fight. Most DLC types didn't go as far off the tracks as Joe Lieberman eventually did. In fact, even the DLC got sick of Lieberman's antics sabotaging the Democrats before he left the Senate. On the other hand, the Democrats were all too eager to welcome Lieberman back into the Democratic Caucus after he actively campaigned for John McCain in the 2008 Presidential contest.

That traditional liberal/DLC-Blue Dog split among Dems doesn't describe the current major ideological fault line in the Democratic Party, which crystallized in 2016 in the Bernie-vs.-Hillary divide. At the moment, we can broadly describe the Bernie wing of the party as explicitly social-democratic, even militantly so. It's an outlook that openly embraces the spirit and content of the New Deal in a way even the liberal wing of 1990 was somewhat hesitant to do. On social issues, the Bernie wing is very much in favor of strong enforcement of anti-discrimination laws for racial minorities, women and the LGBTQ community. And supportive of a humane immigration reform that gives a straightforward path of citizenship to the millions of mostly Latino undocumented immigrants in the US. And though the foreign policy position of the Bernie wing may not be quite so consistent as on economic and social issues, it's broadly speaking a peace-oriented view with a healthy skepticism of US military interventions. And for the New Deal wing, campaign reform that's definitively overturns Citizens United is a major priority. Because, as Barack Obama himself said of the decision when it was first handed down:

This ruling strikes at our democracy itself.

This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way – or to punish those who don’t. That means that any public servant who has the courage to stand up to the special interests and stand up for the American people can find himself or herself under assault come election time. Even foreign corporations may now get into the act.

I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest.

Unfortunately, Obama's sense of urgency proved to be relatively short-lived. But the New Deal Democrats tend to take those sentiments very seriously, even if Obama may not have.

In retrospect, Jerry Brown's Presidential campaign in 1992 was an early version of today's New Deal Democratic position, supportive of labor, minority rights, women's rights and immigrants, in favor of single-payer health care, and giving a central emphasis to reducing the role of money in politics. And that was 18 years before Citizens United! He was also in favor of a peace-oriented foreign policy that would take maximum advantage of the opportunites prsented by the fall of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union.

Today's corporate Democrats are not worrying about "Sister Soljah moments" or opposing same-sex marriage. On the contrary, they are straightforwardly in favor of women's rights and gay rights and minority rights. But they support neoliberal economic policies: deregulation, privatization (charter schools, private prisons, etc.), low taxes for the wealthy, international agreements to dergulate capital and corporations masquerading as trade treaties, praising of balanced budgets as an excuse to forgo Keynesian economic stimulus. They are also distinctly hawkish in foreign policy, though they typically rely more on "liberal internationalist" rhetoric than Cheney style neoconservative framing, though in practice they often come to the same thing. And they are comfortable with corporate-financed elections and supportive of them, despite ritual denunciations of Citizens United. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are outstanding current example of the corporate Democratic camp.

In this context, Joan Walsh's comment struck me. It almost sounded like she was identifying the New Deal/Bernie Sanders wing with the old DLC approach as though they were opposing minority and women's rights.

The reality is more that the corporate Dems emphasize those issues as a way to avoid advocating aggressively for prolabor economic policies.

Jerry Brown on the Republicans' Herbert Hoover budget proposal

California Gov. Jerry Brown's press release today on the Trump/Republican austerity budget (except for the wealthy and arms manufacturers):

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued the following statement on President Donald J. Trump's 2018 Proposed Budget:

"This budget proposal is based on utterly bogus economic assumptions. It gives a massive tax break to the wealthiest, while imposing painful and debilitating burdens on tens of millions of decent and hard-working people. It's unconscionable and un-American." [my emphasis]

Seventysomethings against Trump

Polls are currently showing that 75-year-old Bernie Sanders, an Independent who describes himself as a democratic socialist, is the most popular politician in the country.

Popularity, as we know, can be a fickle thing. But Bernie's is well-earned. He's an effective spokesman for progressive and New Deal Democratic politics. And his strong primary campaign has made him respectable enough for mainstream outlets to invite him on as Democratic spokesman, not as the exotic outlier they considered him up even a year ago. Morning Joe interviewed him this week on various topics, in this segment the MSNBC YouTube channel title, California wages climate war against Trump 03/29/2017:

Chuck Todd interviewed California Gov. Jerry Brown a week ago on immigration and other subjects, including climate change, Full Brown Interview: 'Don't Mess With California' 03/23/2017

During that interview, he even throws the Bible at Trump, CA Gov Brown: Not ‘Christian’ to Build Wall to Keep Out Illegal Immigrants 03/26/2017:

Aljazeera reports on California's position against Trump climate change policies, California wages climate war against Trump 03/29/2017:

Jerry turns 79 on April 9. He and Bernie are demonstrating very dramatically that leaders can be politically relevant, and in a very progressive way, at 75 and 79.

Many of the younger leaders in the Democratic Party show follow their examples!

Mass deportation and resistance

President Tinyhands yesterday told a group of CEOs with whom he was meeting - in the interest of the common people I'm sure! - described his mass deportation operation as a "military operation."

His spokespeople tried to walk it back afterwards (Jordan Fabian, Spicer: Trump didn’t mean ‘military operation’ literally The Hill 02/23/2017):

Trump sowed confusion over the military’s role in immigration enforcement with his remarks earlier Thursday at the White House.

“We’re getting really bad dudes out of this country,” he said at a meeting with manufacturing CEOs. “And at a rate nobody has ever seen before. And they’re the bad ones. And it’s a military operation.”

Using the military to apprehend people living illegally in the interior of the country would be highly unusual — and possibly a violation of U.S. law.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly later clarified that military troops would not be used to enforce immigration laws after meeting with Mexican officials.

Kelly also insisted in Mexico that the operation was not a mass deportation, though that's clearly what is underway. (Ni deportación masiva ni use de fuerza militar: John Kelly Milenio 24.02.2017)

Mexico in its diplomatic pushback is also insisting on the US doing a better job in controlling drug trafficking on the US side and restricting the flows of guns and cash into Mexico.

Latino leaders in the US are organizing to coordinate efforts in opposing the Trump mass deporation. (María Peña, Líderes latinos anuncian ‘cumbre’ de resistencia contra Trump La Opinión 24.02.2017)

California's Attorney General tweeted:

I've joined 6 states opposing the detention of non-citizens who have never been found to pose a threat: https://t.co/cVeaOkpx8B

— Xavier Becerra (@AGBecerra) February 11, 2017

The PBS Newshour reported on the visit of Homeland Security Secretary Kelly and ExxonMobil Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Mexico, U.S. and Mexico share diplomatic dialogue amid tensions 02/23/2017:

Status of Trump's mass deportation effort

The White House has approved some drastic new Homeland Security guidelines in new memoranda dated February 20 that are clearly aimed at mass deportation and the state terror against Latino communities that comes with it. Simon Maloy summarizes some of their provisions in Mass Deportation Is Coming Salon 02/21/2017:

Despite the president’s insistence that “criminals” will be the focus of his deportation policy, both his executive order and the Homeland Security memoranda make clear that pretty much any undocumented immigrant detained by authorities will be subject to removal from the country. The Department of Homeland Security states that undocumented immigrants who have “committed acts which constitute a chargeable criminal offense” will be prioritized. As The New York Times wrote in January, this is an expansive designation that encompasses “anyone the authorities believe has broken any type of law — regardless of whether that person has been charged with a crime.”

The department’s guidance also states that undocumented immigrants who “pose a risk to public safety or national security” in the judgment of an immigration officer should be prioritized for removal. That nebulous phrasing puts immense power in the hands of individual immigration enforcement agents to determine who is kicked out of the country.

Above all, the memos indicate that the policy of the Trump administration will be to remove as many undocumented immigrants as it can in the shortest amount of time allowable. The criteria for expedited removal has been expanded so that any undocumented immigrant who can’t prove he or she has been in the country for more than two years can be deported without being able to make a case before a judge. Under the new guidelines, undocumented immigrants who crossed the southern border and are waiting to appear before an immigration judge can now be pre-emptively deported to Mexico, where they will hypothetically have access to “a functional, interoperable video teleconference system” to complete their deportation proceedings.

I think the headline on the piece understates what's happening. Because mass deportation is here. This is an early moment of it, and it can still be stopped. But it's underway.

Here is a discussion from The Young Turks, Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola in this case, discussing the mass deportation and the dishonest argument is supporters use that it's just a continuation of what Obama was doing. It's still all Obama's fault in the Republican corner of the universe. Abused Woman Goes To Authorities, Gets Deported 02/20/2017:

Wishful thinking on Trump's mass deportation program

Some Republican big growers in California have apparently talked themselves into thinking the Trump mass deportation of undocumented workers won't affect them much.

In his report, Rory Carroll (Latino laborers fear deportation, but officials tell California farmers not to fret Guardian 02/20/2017) quotes two lines from the Lennon-McCartney song "Strawberry Fields Forever":

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see.

It's true that the State of California under Gov. Jerry Brown has made it clear that it won't willingly cooperate with a mass deportation program. And California growers have gone through various cycles in which xenophobia against Latino immigrants attracts more attention and support from politicians. But California agriculture depends on undocumented immigrant labor. So the growers in the past have always been able to count on wink-and-a-nod laxity in enforcement, even while they can hold the threat of deportation or illegal firings over their workers' heads.

Some of them apparently think things will go on as in past cycles of xenophobic hostility. Others are more apprehensive about not being able to hire enough workers, probably the more realistic perspective at the moment. But Carroll observes, "Both versions, for now, are accurate – a dissonance stemming from ambiguity over current government policies and the fact that no one has any clue what will happen next."

“It’s a lot of hype from the advocacy groups and the media,” said Rob Roy, head of the Ventura County Agricultural Association. “I deal with over 100 farms and not had one farmer come to me with any complaint about immigration issues or raids.”

Ice enacted similar raids under Barack Obama, who deported a record 2.5m people with little media outcry, Roy said. “But with Trump, suddenly the moral fibre of our country is coming apart. I don’t think Ice is going to start running into fields and taking away farm workers. I don’t believe that.”

This also struck me:

“It’s a lot of hype from the advocacy groups and the media,” said Rob Roy, head of the Ventura County Agricultural Association. “I deal with over 100 farms and not had one farmer come to me with any complaint about immigration issues or raids.”

Ice enacted similar raids under Barack Obama, who deported a record 2.5m people with little media outcry, Roy said. “But with Trump, suddenly the moral fibre of our country is coming apart. I don’t think Ice is going to start running into fields and taking away farm workers. I don’t believe that.”

That link is to an earlier Guardian article, also by Rory Carroll, that provides some useful reality-based discussion of the US immigration situation, How Breitbart and the conservative right opened a new front in the war over fake news 12/15/2016, where he writes:

Breitbart faults the Guardian for using the oft-cited statistic that the Obama administration deported a record 2.5 million people, saying this is misleading or inaccurate because authorities have “inflated” the number by including a category of border crossers which used to be counted as “returned” rather than formally deported.

It is true that authorities are now prosecuting and often jailing more border crossers before formally deporting them, whereas in previous eras most were swiftly returned to Mexico with little formality. If you include returnees as well as deportees, the Clinton and Bush administrations sent back far more people than the Obama administration.

But the fact remains that Obama has formally deported more than his predecessors. This table from the Department of Homeland Security’s annual yearbook of immigration statistics shows the record going back to 1892.

One reason formal deportations have risen is deterrence. The strategy is to punish illicit border crossing with months or even years in jail. Another reason is demographic shifts. The number of Mexicans trying to cross has plunged while the numbers from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have surged. They latter cannot simply be dumped back across the Rio Grande.

The Obama Administration didn't undertake the kind of systematic mass deportation of current undocumented residents that Trump promised on the campaign trail and is clearly trying to implement in practice. That doesn't mean that Obama's deportation policy was a good one. But it is important to make distinctions, both to understand what's going on and to counter the stock propaganda justification of "well, Obama did it, too!"

The December 15 article includes this chart based on Homeland Security data:

But Obama's immigration policy was a prime example of the toxic brand of "bipartisanship" he practiced. He justified his aggressive detention and deportation program to Democrats by packaging it as an attempt to get comprehensive immigration reform by convincing Republicans he was serious about border enforcement. Not only did it not achieve the alleged goal of getting enough Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform to get it passed. It also reinforced the Republican framing of the immigration issue as one of law-enforcement in which harsher is better than humane.

How could a Democrat frame the immigration issue differently? Like Jerry Brown did in his State of the State address this year:

A few moments ago, I swore into office our new attorney general. Like so many others, he is the son of immigrants who saw California as a place where, through grit and determination, they could realize their dreams. And they are not alone, millions of Californians have come here from Mexico and a hundred other countries, making our state what it is today: vibrant, even turbulent, and a beacon of hope to the rest of the world.

We don't have a Statue of Liberty with its inscription: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." But we do have the Golden Gate and a spirit of adventure and openness that has welcomed - since the Gold Rush of 1848 - one wave of immigration after another.

For myself, I feel privileged to stand before you as your governor, as did my father almost sixty years ago. His mother, Ida, the youngest of eight children, was born in very modest circumstances, not very far from where we are gathered today. Her father arrived in California in 1852, having left from the Port of Hamburg, aboard a ship named "Perseverance."

It is that spirit of perseverance and courage which built our state from the beginning. And it is that spirit which will get us through the great uncertainty and the difficulties ahead.

... in California, immigrants are an integral part of who we are and what we've become. They have helped create the wealth and dynamism of this state from the very beginning.

I recognize that under the Constitution, federal law is supreme and that Washington determines immigration policy. But as a state we can and have had a role to play. California has enacted several protective measures for the undocumented: the Trust Act, lawful driver's licenses, basic employment rights and non-discriminatory access to higher education.

We may be called upon to defend those laws and defend them we will. And let me be clear: we will defend everybody - every man, woman and child - who has come here for a better life and has contributed to the well-being of our state.

Jerry Brown's defiant State of the State Address against Trumpism

California Gov. Jerry Brown gave a notable and impressive State of the State address this past week, Governor Brown Delivers 2017 State of the State Address: "California is Not Turning Back, Not Now, Not Ever" Governor's Press Release 01/24/2017.

Here's a news report on the speech, California Governor Vows To Fight Trump's Vision CBS Los Angeles 01/24/2017:

This is a somewhat shorter report from Time, California Gov. Jerry Brown's State Of The State Speech Takes On Donald Trump 01/24/2017:

This video includes the full address. Jerry's speech starts just after 20:00 in this video, 2017 State of the State Address from the Assembly Chambers AssemblyAccess 01/24/2017:

Sam Seder comments on the address in Gov. Jerry Brown: California Will Actively Resist Trump Administration's Crazy Agenda The Majority Report 01/27/2017:

Because it is so notable, I'm including the full text here from the prepared remarks included in the press release above:

Thank you. Thank you for all that energy and enthusiasm. It is just what we need for the battle ahead. So keep it up and don't ever falter.

This is California, the sixth most powerful economy in the world. One out of every eight Americans lives right here and 27 percent - almost eleven million - were born in a foreign land.

When California does well, America does well. And when California hurts, America hurts.

As the English poet, John Donne, said almost 400 years ago:

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

A few moments ago, I swore into office our new attorney general. Like so many others, he is the son of immigrants who saw California as a place where, through grit and determination, they could realize their dreams. And they are not alone, millions of Californians have come here from Mexico and a hundred other countries, making our state what it is today: vibrant, even turbulent, and a beacon of hope to the rest of the world.

We don't have a Statue of Liberty with its inscription: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." But we do have the Golden Gate and a spirit of adventure and openness that has welcomed - since the Gold Rush of 1848 - one wave of immigration after another.

For myself, I feel privileged to stand before you as your governor, as did my father almost sixty years ago. His mother, Ida, the youngest of eight children, was born in very modest circumstances, not very far from where we are gathered today. Her father arrived in California in 1852, having left from the Port of Hamburg, aboard a ship named "Perseverance."

It is that spirit of perseverance and courage which built our state from the beginning. And it is that spirit which will get us through the great uncertainty and the difficulties ahead.

It is customary on an occasion like this to lay out a specific agenda for the year ahead. Six times before from this rostrum, I have done that, and in some detail. And, as I reread those proposals set forth in previous State of the State speeches, I was amazed to see how much we have accomplished together.

We have:

Increased - by tens of billions - support for our public schools and universities.
Provided health insurance to over five million more Californians.
Raised the minimum wage.
Reduced prison overcrowding and reformed our system of crime and punishment.
Made California a world leader in the fight against climate change.
Passed a water bond.
Built up a rainy day fund.
And closed a huge $27 billion deficit.

And during the last seven years, California has reduced the unemployment rate from 12.1 percent to 5.2 percent and created almost 2.5 million jobs. And that's not all.

But this morning it is hard for me to keep my thoughts just on California. The recent election and inauguration of a new President have shown deep divisions across America.

While no one knows what the new leaders will actually do, there are signs that are disturbing. We have seen the bald assertion of "alternative facts." We have heard the blatant attacks on science. Familiar signposts of our democracy -truth, civility, working together - have been obscured or swept aside.

But on Saturday, in cities across the country, we also witnessed a vast and inspiring fervor that is stirring in the land. Democracy doesn't come from the top; it starts and spreads in the hearts of the people. And in the hearts of Americans, our core principles are as strong as ever.

So as we reflect on the state of our state, we should do so in the broader context of our country and its challenges. We must prepare for uncertain times and reaffirm the basic principles that have made California the Great Exception that it is.

First, in California, immigrants are an integral part of who we are and what we've become. They have helped create the wealth and dynamism of this state from the very beginning.

I recognize that under the Constitution, federal law is supreme and that Washington determines immigration policy. But as a state we can and have had a role to play. California has enacted several protective measures for the undocumented: the Trust Act, lawful driver's licenses, basic employment rights and non-discriminatory access to higher education.

We may be called upon to defend those laws and defend them we will. And let me be clear: we will defend everybody - every man, woman and child - who has come here for a better life and has contributed to the well-being of our state.

My second point relates to health care. More than any other state, California embraced the Affordable Care Act and over five million people now enjoy its benefits. But that coverage has come with tens of billions of federal dollars. Were any of that to be taken away, our state budget would be directly affected, possibly devastated. That is why I intend to join with other governors - and with you - to do everything we can to protect the health care of our people.

Third, our state is known the world over for the actions we have taken to encourage renewable energy and combat climate change.

Whatever they do in Washington, they can't change the facts. And these are the facts: the climate is changing, the temperatures are rising and so are the oceans. Natural habitats everywhere are under increasing stress. The world knows this.

One hundred and ninety-four countries signed the Paris Agreement to control greenhouse gases. Our own voluntary agreement to accomplish the same goal - the "Under Two M.O.U." - has 165 signatories, representing a billion people.

We cannot fall back and give in to the climate deniers. The science is clear. The danger is real.

We can do much on our own and we can join with others - other states and provinces and even countries, to stop the dangerous rise in climate pollution. And we will.

Fourth is infrastructure. This is a topic where the President has stated his firm intention to build and build big.

In his inaugural address, he said: "We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation."

And in this, we can all work together - here in Sacramento and in Washington as well. We have roads and tunnels and railroads and even a dam that the President could help us with. And that will create good-paying American jobs.

As we face the hard journey ahead, we will have to summon, as Abraham Lincoln said, "the better angels of our nature." Above all else, we have to live in the truth.

We all have our opinions but for democracy to work, we have to trust each other. We have to strive to understand the facts and state them clearly as we argue our points of view. As Hugo Grotius, the famous Dutch jurist, said long ago, "even God cannot cause two times two not to make four."

When the science is clear or when our own eyes tell us that the seats in this chamber are filled or that the sun is shining, we must say so, not construct some alternate universe of non-facts that we find more pleasing.

Along with truth, we must practice civility. Although we have disagreed - often along party lines - we have generally been civil to one another and avoided the rancor of Washington. I urge you to go even further and look for new ways to work beyond party and act as Californians first.

Democrats are in the majority, but Republicans represent real Californians too. We went beyond party when we reformed workers' compensation, when we created a rainy day fund and when we passed the water bond.

Let's do that again and set an example for the rest of the country. And, in the process, we will earn the trust of the people of California.

And then there is perseverance. It is not an accident that the sailing ship that brought my great-grandfather to America was named "Perseverance." That is exactly what it took to endure the dangerous and uncertain months at sea, sailing from Germany to America.

While we now face different challenges, make no mistake: the future is uncertain and dangers abound. Whether it's the threat to our budget, or to undocumented Californians, or to our efforts to combat climate change - or even more global threats such as a financial meltdown or a nuclear incident or terrorist attack - this is a time which calls out for courage and for perseverance. I promise you both.

But let's remember as well that after the perilous voyage, those who made it to America found boundless opportunity. And so will we.

Let me end in the immortal words of Woody Guthrie:

"This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me...

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me."

California is not turning back. Not now, not ever.

The Governor's Office also provides this Spanish translation.

Jerry Brown's Official Thanksgiving Proclamation

This is the main text of Gov. Jerry Brown's Thanksgiving Proclamation for 2016:

The first Thanksgiving in 1621 was a celebration of the harvest that brought together the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation and the Native Americans who helped them adapt to their new environment. Over the years Thanksgiving became an American tradition and one of the first holidays we celebrated as a free and independent nation. In 1789, George Washington proclaimed the first Thanksgiving observance in the newly formed United States of America, writing that "it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor."

Thanksgiving has continued to be one of our most cherished observances, a day to join with family and friends and feast on traditional delicacies from roasted turkey to pumpkin pie, and commemorate the joining of the Old World and the New that brought about that First Thanksgiving long ago.

It is most fitting that we set aside a special day for gratitude. As Americans, we have every reason to give thanks for the wonderful bounty of our land, the strength of our fellow citizens and our system of government that protects our basic freedoms.

He has used the same Thanksgiving Proclamation language each year since 2011.

But it's not that Jerry has a Pollyanish view of the history of the Native Americans and the late-coming immigrants from Europe. From his Proclamation of Native American Day of 09/23/2016:

California has been home to human beings for more than 12,000 years, with the presence of European-Americans representing only a tiny fraction of this time. The first Europeans to arrive in California encountered hundreds of thousands of people organized into hundreds of distinct tribal groups. They flourished in the bountiful hills and valleys of what someday would be called California.

The contact between these first Californians and successive waves of newcomers over the three succeeding centuries was marked by the utter devastation of the native peoples, their families and entire way of life. The colonial regimes of Spain and Mexico through disease and enforced servitude cut the indigenous population by more than half. Then the Gold Rush came, and with it, a wave of new diseases and wanton violence which reduced the Native population again, this time by more than 80 percent. The newborn State of California actually paid for the killing of Native peoples and tolerated or encouraged policies of warfare, slavery and relocation that left no tribe intact. In his 1851 address to the Legislature, our first Governor, Peter Burnett, famously stated, “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected.”

In spite of Burnett’s prediction, California today is home to the largest population of Native Americans in the fifty states, including both the rebounding numbers of our native tribes and others drawn to the Golden State by its myriad opportunities. The success of tribal businesses and the presence today of tribal members in all walks of life stand as testament to the resilience and indomitable spirit of native peoples. If Governor Burnett could not envision a future California that included Native Americans, it is just as impossible for us today to envision one without them.

He signed legislation in 2014 establishing "Native American Day" as a state holiday in California. This year's Proclamation was the same as in 2014 and 2015. In previous years starting with his first year as Governor (for the second time in his career) in 2011, he also proclaimed the Columbus Day holiday as "Native American Day." He's used the same Proclamation language each year except 2011:

WHEREAS, Native Americans were the first human inhabitants of the land that is now the State of California, and have lived here continuously for at least 12,000 years;

WHEREAS, Native American traditions of stewardship and conservation have shaped and preserved the landscapes of our state and continent;

WHEREAS, the songs, dances, arts, and crafts of Native Americans are among the world’s great cultural treasures;

WHEREAS, Native American traditions were influential in the formation of American democracy;

WHEREAS, Native Americans have preserved their distinct cultural traditions in the face of overwhelming odds and persistent injustice;

WHEREAS, in spite of this tragic history, Native Americans have been generous citizens of the United States, serving our country in peace and war;

WHEREAS, California today has more Native Americans living within its borders than any other state;

NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim September 22, 2011, as “Native American Day.”

Jerry Brown on nuclear proliferation

The defense industry is "the business of mass destruction," says California Gov. Jerry Brown.

It's in his review of former Defense Secretary William Perry's book My Journey at the Nuclear Brink A Stark Nuclear Warning New York Review of Books 07/14/2016 issue; accessed 06/28/2016. It's not the typical venue for a sitting governor.

He also observes that "presidents follow the political and highly dangerous path of sizing our nuclear force to achieve 'parity' with Russia. Such a competitive and mindless process always leads to escalation without end."

And he shares this story from the Cuban Missile Crisis:

... Perry writes [that] the Soviet ships approaching the blockade imposed by the US had submarine escorts that were armed with nuclear torpedoes. Because of the difficulty with communications, Moscow had authorized the submarine commanders to fire without further authorization. When an American destroyer tried to force a submarine to surface, both its captain and the political officer decided to fire a nuclear torpedo at the destroyer. A nuclear confrontation was avoided only because Vasili Arkhipov, the overall commander of the fleet, was also present on the submarine. He countermanded the order to launch, thereby preventing what might have started a nuclear war.

He also cites approvingly Perry's observation on how nuclear weapons don't provide real security:

Reflecting upon the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Perry says it was then that he first understood that the end of all of civilization was now possible, not merely the ruin of cities. He took to heart Einstein’s words that “the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything, save our modes of thinking.” He asserts that it is only “old thinking” that persuades our leaders that nuclear weapons provide security, instead of understanding the hard truth that “they now endanger it.”

He also mentions the notorious "missile gap" circa 1960: "He was also part of the team assembled in 1959 by Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA, to determine whether or not there was a 'missile gap' with the Soviet Union. In fact, there was no gap but the report Perry worked on was kept secret for decades, as he reveals in his book."

For more on the "missile gap," see: John Prados, Review of John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap Journal of Cold War Studies 10:1 (Winter 2008)

Jerry also makes this comment about the lack of success in Dick Cheney's Iraq War, "Success unfortunately can lead to overconfidence and I wonder whether the success of the first Gulf War lulled George W. Bush into thinking that another war could be fought with similar results. We now know that technical prowess can’t necessarily overcome the human factors of ethnic division, historical enmity, and religious belief."

Insurance for undocumented immigrants in California

Even though California Gov. Jerry Brown surprisingly endorsed Hillary Clinton the week before the California primary this year, he's still on the cutting edge of progressive politics in the Democratic Party. Here's one more example: Kamala Kelkar, California moves closer to health insurance for undocumented residents PBS Newshour 06/11/2016.

California: a one-party state now?

Sherry Bebitch and Jeffe Douglas have an intriguing report on California politics, A one-party state without the rancor Reuters 3/10/2016. The "one-party state" mentioned in the title strikes me as kind of cute, although it doesn't work as political analysis for me.

What they are describing is an effective Governor, Jerry Brown, who is getting constructive things done with a Democratic legislature. And guess what? That combination is popular in California:

It is ironic that California, home of the far-right John Birch Society and such liberal bastions as Berkeley and Santa Monica, is drifting to the political center, even as national politics is lurching both left and right. It remains to be seen, however, whether this is another instance of the Golden State’s being out in front of the rest of the country or just inhabiting a parallel universe.

Today’s California is a bright blue state in federal elections. It is firmly on the progressive side on social issues and proactively seeks to lead the way in addressing climate change. At the same time, Governor Jerry Brown has imposed fiscal restraint. With the help of large Democratic legislative majorities and a voter-approved ballot measure that allows budget passage by a simple majority vote in the legislature, once red-hot appropriation wars have cooled.

A cadre of moderate Democrats has also been able to flex some political muscle in support of business-related issues in the Legislature, which has muted Republican rhetoric and charmed the GOP’s corporate allies. Political civility is the order of the day, at least for now.

In fact, the article uses the one-party-state idea to raise an important question about a relatively new twist in the California electoral structure:

This doesn’t mean that California has become a one-party state. It’s more a “no party” state. Modern California has long had a candidate-centric electoral process. This dynamic has been abetted by a series of systemic changes that have rearranged the political battlefield in ways that shifts the political wars toward the center of the ideological spectrum.

A major catalyst for California’s new “moderate” politics has been a series of ballot measures enacted by voters that overturned the state’s closed primary system, took reapportionment out of the hands of the legislature, unclogged the gridlock surrounding California’s historically contentious state-budget process and, most recently, revamped legislative term limits.

A consequential change has been the implementation of the “top two” primary. Under this system, all candidates for a legislative, congressional or statewide office compete on a single primary ballot. Voters then choose between the two top vote-getters — regardless of party affiliation — in the general election. No longer are there closed primaries in which the most liberal candidate generally prevails in Democratic districts, and hard-right conservatives dominate the Republican districts.

I have to admit I haven't tried to think through the implications of this structure. One worry I have is that it could result in more concentrated efforts by the One Percent to develop the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. As though it wasn't strong enough as it is!

Jerry Brown targeted by a (lightweight) pseudoscandal report

Scandal accusations have been pretty rare for Jerry Brown. But no politician with as long a record in public life as his can expect to escape them entirely.

The AP published a story last week that had all the initial look of a pseudoscandal. And that's still what it looks like. This column by George Skelton, Controversy over oil study on Brown ranch is mainly bull Los Angeles Times 11/09/2015. It would be hard for me to improve on Skelton's summary of the flap:

The AP reported that Brown last year "directed state oil and gas regulators to research, map and report back on any mining and oil drilling potential and history at the Brown family's private land" north of Sacramento in Colusa County.

The governor has 2,700 acres that were settled by his ancestors during the Gold Rush. It's rolling, isolated country that ascends into the foothills. There he has built a small cabin, basically a crude shelter with no electricity or even a toilet. It's a fun, nostalgic thing for him — probably a lot more so than for his wife.

The wire service story said that 'after a phone call from the governor and follow-up requests from his aides,' the regulatory agency 'produced a 51-page historical report and geological assessment, plus a personalized satellite-imaged geological and oil and gas-drilling map' of the area.

You know, just like any ordinary citizen would expect to receive.

But the characterization of the service appears to be a stretch. Except for a one-page personal memo, all the material collected for the governor amounted to merely a pile of old letters sent other property owners, historic data from yesteryear and some oil field maps.

"Everything is available on the [state] website," said Nancy Vogel, chief spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Agency, the umbrella entity for these regulators. "If you know how to find it.["]

"They did not do a formal assessment. That would have been many weeks of work." ...

Two petroleum experts who aren't necessarily Brown fans confirmed to me that all this stuff is available on the state's oil and gas website. [my emphasis]

The part about Jerry's 19th-century style cabin is a nice touch.

Columbus Day 2015, or Native American Day in California

On the West Coast, it's still Columbus Day, which in California is officially Native American Day. This is Gov. Jerry Brown's official proclamation this year:

California has been home to human beings for at least 12,000 years, with the period of European-American settlement representing only a tiny fraction of this time. The first Europeans to arrive in California encountered hundreds of thousands of people organized into hundreds of distinct tribal groups. They flourished in the bountiful hills and valleys of what would someday become the Golden State.

The contact between these first Californians and successive waves of newcomers over the three succeeding centuries was marked by the utter devastation of Native American people, families and society. The colonial regimes of Spain and Mexico, through disease and slavery, reduced the indigenous population by more than half. Then the Gold Rush came, and with it a wave of new diseases and outright violence that halved the population again in just two years. The newborn State of California institutionalized violence against Native Americans, enacting policies of warfare, slavery and relocation that left few people alive and no tribe intact. In his 1851 address to the Legislature, our first Governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett, famously stated, “That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected.”

In spite of Burnett’s prediction, California today is home to the largest population of Native Americans in the fifty states, including both the rebounding numbers of our native Tribes and others drawn to the Golden State by its myriad attractions. The success of tribal businesses and the rise of tribal members in all walks of life today stand as testament to the resilience and enduring spirit of our native peoples. If Governor Burnett could not envision a future California including Native Americans, it is just as impossible for us today to envision one without them.

NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim September 25, 2015, as “Native American Day” in the State of California.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 22nd day of September 2015. [my emphasis in bold]

Jerry Brown sends a letter to Donald Trump on climate change

I've was reading something today about how the Koch Brothers and other multi-billionaires are more-and-more privatizing the Republican Party. (Adele Stan, Why Jeb Bush's Pitch to the Koch Brothers Should Scare You The American Prospect 08/05/2015)

And it reminded me that lots of people thought Jerry Brown was over the top in 1992 in his last run for the Democratic Presidential nomination when he talked about campaign finance being bribery. But like a lot of things, he was talking about trends that were happening years before other politicians would talk about them that way. I looked up this video of him giving a campaign speech in 1992, where he made campaign finance a central issue. And I notice that just following 12:50 in the video, he even talks about the One Percent. And that was when a lot of Occupy Wall Street protesters weren't even in preschool yet. Gov. Jerry Brown at UCSC-1992:

He doesn't use Paul Krugman's current term of "zombie ideas" here. But he does complain about "these dead ideas that are so dominant." This was long before the re-animated corpses of Herbert Hoover and Heinrich Brüning were dictating economic policy in a new world depression. (Or Great Recession, if you prefer.)

Of course, times have changed in some ways. In this speech, Jerry was talking about the scandal of "thousand-dollar checks." These days, run-of-the-mill multimillionaires are grumping because they don't get the kind of attention from political fundraisers they used to because the fundraisers only want to talk to zillionaires.

He also talks at the end of the speech about reducing energy consumption by 50%. In a letter to Donald Trump (really!) he says (GOVERNOR BROWN TO GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES ON CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT IS YOUR PLAN? 08/05/2015):

Continuing to question the science and hurl insults at "global warming hoaxsters" and "apostles of this pseudo-religion" won't prevent severe damage to our health and economic well-being. Americans, their children and generations to come deserve - and demand - better.

From the lab to the boardroom and even to the pulpit, global leaders aren't waiting around. They understand there's no time for delay or denial.

In May, the Pope, issued a call to arms on climate change in his encyclical, Laudato Si' - a charge he echoed last month at a Vatican symposium of the world's mayors and governors organized by the Pontifical Academies of Sciences. Earlier this week, the President announced ambitious, yet achievable, nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. More than a dozen major companies - from Google to Walmart - representing more than $1.3 trillion in revenue in 2014, have pledged to act on climate change.

In the scientific community, there's overwhelming consensus that climate change is real and happening. This conclusion has been endorsed by nearly 200 national and international scientific bodies throughout the world, including those in Brazil, South Africa, India, China, Russia, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Japan and the U.S.

Here in California, we plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels, increase from one-third to 50 percent the electricity derived from renewable sources and reduce today's petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50 percent all in the next 15 years, among many other efforts. For those that think we have to choose between fighting climate change and growing our economy, let's not forget that California outpaced the nation last year in job growth.

Jerry Brown on being a Catholic

Italian reporters may be having trouble how to process Jerry Brown's public statements as American reports do. (A problem that most California voters don't have.)

David Siders reports on Jerry responding cautiously to a question about his religious identity (Jerry Brown, ‘Are you Catholic?’ Sacramento Bee 07/22/2015):

“I think the formation that I’ve undergone growing up in the Catholic faith, the Catholic religion, puts forth a world that’s orderly, that has purpose and that ultimately is a positive,” Brown said. “And that’s very helpful when you look at a world that looks very much the opposite, in terms of the wars, the corruption and the breakdown. And so even though from an intellectual point of view it looks very dark, in another sense I have great faith and confidence that there is a way forward. And I would attribute that in some way to my Catholic upbringing and training.”

The Nerd Prom 2015, aka, the White House Correspondents' Dinner

The annual ritual of the White House Correspondents' Dinner, sponsored by the White House Correspondents' Association, took place on Saturday.

President Obama at White House Correspondents' Dinner White House 04/25/2015:

This speech-translator routine isn't even particularly original for the Correspondents' Dinner. George Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner:

I can certainly agree with Ezra Klein's opening sentence in his report on the 2015 edition, "The White House Correspondents' Dinner has become a strange event." (The joke was that Obama wasn’t joking Vox 04/27/2015)

As the title of his piece indicates, Klein thinks Obama used humor to say what he can't say so explicitly in his formal role as President.

I'm not convinced. As Ezra points out, the instantly-famous "anger translator" segment of his presentation was based on a previous comedy sketch.

So is this what Ezra describes as, "There are no jokes there. There's just Obama saying what he has to say and Luther saying what Obama actually believes."

It's too bad that Sigmund Freud isn't around to include this phenomenon in a revised edition of his book, The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious.

Maybe it's a bit of political Puritanism on my part. But I really don't like the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Among Presidential rituals, it ranks with the National Prayer Breakfast, sponsored by a rightwing Christian fundamentalist group, and any ceremony that honors the memory of the Confederacy as such as things the President should not do.

On the Dinner, though, I'm willing to give the Presidents a partial break. If the leading Washington reporters and pundits want to throw any pretense of being journalistic watchdogs to the wind and suck up the the President at a glamor-overdose event, the President has strong incentive to play them for suckers. I get that.

But the event has become one where the President is expected to play comedian for the night. And even at its least obnoxious, it contributes to the merger of politics, government and show business to an extent I would rather not see. It encourages the toxic idea that politics is and should be a spectator sport, entertainment rather than serious business.

The low point of this came in 2004, when Shrub Bush did a comedy routine about there being no WMD in Iraq, the lie on which he had justified the invasion. It showed what contempt he had for the American people and how little sense of responsibility he felt about the lives of Americans lost in the war, not even to mention the lives of Iraqis killed for no good reason. A CNN report, Bush takes heat for WMD jokes 05/06/2015, gives a good sense of how grotesque it was, even while sticking to the stenographic this-side-says-the-other-side-says approach:

Democrats have seized on the matter, calling it astonishingly insensitive when Americans have died for their country in Iraq while the search for WMD has turned up nothing.

The administration had cited the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons program as one of the primary reasons for the need for war.

"It's inappropriate to the thousands of people obviously who have been wounded over there," Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday.

"This is a very serious issue. We've lost hundreds of troops, as you know, over there. Let's not be laughing about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction. ... We certainly should not be making light of the situation."

McAuliffe's Republican counterpart, Ed Gillespie, responded by saying people need to lighten up, that the president made the comment in jest.

He noted that the correspondents at the dinner laughed when the president made the remark. [my emphasis]

That last line was the very, very telling about the elite press. They did laugh at it. And those who did so demonstrated that they had no more sense of decency about the thing that Bush did.

On the Sunday morning horror show called Meet the Press of 04/27/2015, Chuck Todd was still complaining about the fuddy-duddies who criticized Bush the Magnificent, Liberator of Peoples and Scourge of the Heathen, for that reprehensible moment. The transcript doesn't appear to be available yet at the MTP website, nor the video clip of that part.

Mabe somebody at NBC News may have thought it was too embarrassing to show on the website? Ha! As if ...

I've previously referred to a few sentences from Jerry Brown his Inaugural Address as Governor in 2011. He was referring to the poor opinion Californians had of state government, not the White House Correspondents' Dinner. But his observation is relevant to it, as well: "Perhaps this is the reason why the public holds the state government in such low esteem. And that’s a profound problem, not just for those of us who are elected, but for our whole system of self-government. Without the trust of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle; and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void." (my emphasis)

Jerry Brown on the filibuster

James Fallows did an extensive interview with California Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013. In part of it, Jerry addressed the Senate filibuster rule. Fallows gives this quote, shown here with the brackets and italics as in Fallows' post, The Atlantic Politics 05/26/2013:

We can't have a country based on the 60-vote standard. This is serious.

We've never had to have 60 votes for appointments or day-to day-decisions. Really, you can't govern that way. That's a radical change.

How can you govern? Does England have 60? [JF note: Obviously a rhetorical question. His point is that the U.S. has the drawbacks of parliamentary democracy, including political polarization -- without the benefits, namely the ability to get things done.] I think that 60 votes could end America's ability to govern itself. We have to get rid of it.

That 60 votes is bad.

He's right. The Republicans' extreme obstructionism these last six years of Obama's Presidency really is a drastic departure from the Congressional practice since probably the Civil War. "That's a radical change."

And the Republican Party today is a radical party.

Jerry Brown, California and the national Democratic brand

Jerry Brown's Facebook page flagged this article without comment: Jennifer Medinanov, Brown to Start 4th California Term With Pledge for Fiscal Restraint New York Times 11/06/2014.

Part of Jerry's modus operandi has always been a reputation for fiscal responsibility. Some of the incarnations of that have been more inspiring than others.

Backing a balanced budget amendment during his 1980 President run wasn't necessarily the best idea he ever put forward. Although it would have made the massive military buildup under Reagan nearly impossible. That was one of the things that made me realize that however eccentric Jerry's proposals may sometimes seem - and that one was just a bad one - he's most likely seeing an angle that most politicians haven't seen yet.

But fiscal responsibility means something very different at the state level, not least because states don't borrow money in their own currency. Jerry in his current term broke the cycle in which Democrats struggled to minimize cuts in public education and basic services, while Republican obstruction on any kind of tax increase was causing the percentage of the state budget going to debt payments to go up and up. We were in a slow-motion version of Grover Norquist's drown-the-baby-in-the-bathtub strategy.

We'll see how Proposition 1 that just passed actually works, a ballot measure Jerry very prominently promoted. It attempts to force the state to hold a reserve for actual emergencies. I'm very sure that a big part of what he's thinking is that it will make it harder for a Republican Governor (Vishnu save us from that!) to blow out any surplus by just cutting taxes for the wealthy and starting the debt build-up cycle again.

Also, Medinanov doesn't tell the story of Janet Napolitano's proposal to raise UC tuition 5% a year for the next five years very well. (Full disclosure: I have a business relationship with the University of California; any opinions stated or implied here are strictly my own.) Jerry's concern there is presumably over the affordability of university education in California, not some desire to penny-pinch just for the sake of doing. This may be a case of something he said from his first round as California Governor (quoting from memory): "I'm not conservative, I'm just cheap."

Jerry has been careful in the past not to suggest that there was some kind of California Model of politics that would Democrats in other states could simply copy and be successful with it.

Al Franken got re-elected in Minnesota running as a progressive Democrat. His first election six years ago was so close it took eight months to settle the count. This time he got 53% to 42% for the Republican, this time in a midterm election, not a Presidential year like the first time. It's hard to see much in the 2014 election to indicate that the Blue Dog strategy is successful, if success means getting Democratic candidates elected. There's a lot of reason to believe the Blue Dog approach is especially suicidal in midterm elections where turnout is everything. And it certainly plays havoc with any attempt to establish a reasonably consistent Democratic "brand".

Pilar Marrero, who's a good reporter, says in an article today that there are still limited data to draw conclusions about the Latino vote Tuesday. Mitos y realidades del voto latino en las elecciones de 2014 La Opinión 11/06/2014

The number of Latino voters is increasing, so more voted in 2014 than in 2010, but the percentage of Latino voters compared to 2010 would be the more interesting data point. She thinks figures indicating a trend toward Latinos voting more for Reps are pretty shaky, at best. She thinks the lack of mobilizing Latino voters hurt Udall in Colorado's Senate election, which I've seen referenced elsewhere, as well. Last I heard, the party control of Colorado's House and Senate are both still uncertain because of close races; Latino turnout or lack thereof may have been very consequential in Colorado. Pilar also cites a figure that 36% of Latinos say the Democratic Party is indifferent or even hostile to Latinos.

Blue Dogging ain't gonna fix this. Blue Dogging like this, one more time around, one of the worst Democratic ads imaginable, Alison for Kentucky TV Ad "Largest Ever":

Watch the ad and then ask yourself, how could Democrats ever have created the impression they were hostile to Latinos? How? How? How?

One thing the national Democratic Party could and should learn from Jerry's success in California is to not pretend the Republicans are negotiating in good faith when they are not. Because there's no reason to believe the Reps in Congress are going to depart from their obstruction strategy as long as there is a Democrat in the White House. Paul Krugman defines that strategy this way:

But the biggest secret of the Republican triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. From Day 1 of the Obama administration, Mr. McConnell and his colleagues have done everything they could to undermine effective policy, in particular blocking every effort to do the obvious thing — boost infrastructure spending — in a time of low interest rates and high unemployment.

This was, it turned out, bad for America but good for Republicans. Most voters don’t know much about policy details, nor do they understand the legislative process. So all they saw was that the man in the White House wasn't delivering prosperity — and they punished his party. [my emphasis]

But David Siders, the Sacramento Bee, who has spent years unsuccessfully trying to grok what Jerry's about, does a stenography piece that really jsut says, Republicans agree that they don't like Jerry Brown. (GOP victories will test reach of Jerry Brown’s California-made agenda 11/05/2014) But it's presented as Republicans explaining why California's experience this year has no lessons for other states, no, nothing to see here, move right along, no relevance anywhere else.

It does include this comment from Jerry: "Turnout is a global phenomenon that builds up over time and is the result of many things." It's not something that can be drummed up overnight, in other words. What happens in non-election years also matters.