I know this isn’t an Orange County story, but I think it’s still something we should know. This morning in Rochester, New Hampshire, a man walked into the local Hillary Clinton campaign office and immediately took two volunteers hostage. He’s saying that he has a bomb duct-taped to his body, and he’s demanding to speak with Hillary Clinton. The Manchester Union Leader has more on this breaking news.
Senator Clinton was scheduled to speak at the DNC winter meeting in Washington, DC, but DNC Chair Howard Dean recently announced that she will not be speaking due to the hostage crisis in New Hampshire. Meanwhile back in Rochester, both Barack Obama’s and John Edwards’ campaign offices in town have been evacuated and the entire area around Hillary Clinton’s campaign office has been shut down. Obama’s and Edwards’ campaign staffers are all OK, and and nearby schools are keeping students inside.
Please stay tuned here at The Liberal OC for more as this very saddening story continues to develop. We’ll update you as soon as we find out more. All our thoughts and prayers are with Hillary’s campaign team in New Hampshire, and we hope everyone will be OK.
Found this story off of the Associated Press. If you’re a Republican and you plan to vote in Virginia’s primary, you must pledge an oath of loyalty to the Republican Party.
It’s catching on elsewhere…..could it happen here?
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — If you’re planning to vote in Virginia’s February Republican presidential primary, be prepared to sign an oath swearing your Republican loyalty.
The State Board of Elections on Monday approved a state Republican Party request to require all who apply for a GOP primary ballot first vow in writing that they’ll vote for the party’s presidential nominee next fall.
There’s no practical way to enforce the oath. Virginia doesn’t require voters to register by party, and for years the state’s Republicans have fretted that Democrats might meddle in their open primaries.
Virginia Democrats aren’t seeking such an oath for their presidential primary, which is held the same day — February 12th.
HT to Total Buzz on this, but the number of registered Democrats in OC is growing and so are the number of decline-to-staters; Republican registration is down. We’re still way back in second place, but give it time; we may have a Blue County yet.
From Total Buzz: In 1999, GOP registration in the county slipped below 50 percent for the first time since 1984, and has continued creeping downward.
* In 2004, there were 724,260 (48.4%) Republicans in OC. There are now 714,895 (47%).
* In 2004, there were 452,694 (30.3%) Democrats in OC. Now, 459,408 (30.2%).
* Decline-to-state voters have increased from 17.3 percent to 18.7 percent during that period.
On Tuesday the Orange County Register reported on the comments of Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Chris “Darth†Norby about the 6 % raise and 3% bonus given to OCTA CEO Art Leahy. Supervisor Darth Norby said:
“The 6 percent raise is fine,” he said, “but to continue to grant these 3 percent bonuses every year – that should be a one-time thing, not an ongoing, annual event. Nine percent is high.”
Nine percent is too high? What about the 17% that Norby and the rest of the Board has given County CEO Thomas Mauk since February of this year. That doesn’t include by the way the additional 3.88% ($9,752) in vacation timebonus they gave him as well.
Then we have the issues of two County of Orange Republican elected officials who are either under investigation or indicted for misconduct; Sheriff Mike Carona and Treasurer/Tax Collector Chriss Street. (more…)
Hey, you! Yeah, you. Are you starting a new Democratic Club? Or are you looking for ways to expand membership of your club? Or are you looking for a way for your club to actually be effective in growing the Democratic Party? Whatever you’re looking to do with your club, you should attend a special Democratic Leadership Training this Saturday sponsored by the California Democratic Council and the Democratic Party of Orange County that will teach you how to make your club a lean, mean, Dem machine!
Did you ever want to learn Roberts’ Rules of Order? Do you need to figure out how to manage your club’s finances? Do you want to attract new members to your club? Do you want to attract young people to your club? And would you like to utilize technology to your club’s benefit? Well, come on over to the training this Saturday and find out all of this and more!
Saturday, December 1, 8 am-6 pm
Carpenter’s Union Hall - 1916 W. Chapman Ave., Orange CA
Cost: Free (Suggested donation of $10.00 to help cover food and materials)
Seating is limited, so please RSVP to training@cdc-ca.org or 800-446-9709
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
So are you ready to get out, get active, and get your Democratic Club moving? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll see you Saturday.
Hillary Clinton called it a “vast right-wing conspiracy.†Conservatives call it “message discipline.†Others call it the “right-wing noise machine.†Here at TheLiberalOC.com we call it “crap.†And from time to time, we will bring their swill to you in our forum called…
Â
I read the Flash Report so you don’t have to. Today’s commentary (another Carona-free commentary day and a Carona-less month of November) from Jon Fleischman calls on the Governor to declare a state of fiscal emergency.Â
Unlike the Republicans in the State Senate, the Governor doesn’t take policy advice from a blog especially from a blog that continues to ignore the two big elephants in the room (Carona and the rosy financial picture of the California GOP). While its very convenient for conservatives like Jon to blame the state’s financial woes on Democrats, I wonder what the excuse is about the massive shortfall in his own party’s bank account?
If the Governor actually cared about what the Flash Report demands, he might actually follow the advice offered. Since he doesn’t, I think its safe to say he won’t be calling Jon any longer.
We keep hearing about how Republican politicians are leading the way to expose earmark spending. Rep. John Campbell (R-Irvine) has emerged as a champion of this effort despite his own well-documented record of voting for all sorts of earmarks when the Republicans controlled Congress.
GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani is campaigning against Congressional earmarks, unless of course, they benefit his business partners and clients.
HT to Bloomberg News:
Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) — On the campaign trail, Rudy Giuliani rails against congressional spending set aside for lawmakers’ pet projects. In Washington, his law firm fights to obtain them. Giuliani, the Republican presidential front-runner, last month pledged to “get rid of” so-called earmarks, which cost taxpayers about $13 billion this year, saying his party should promote “fiscal discipline.” Just weeks later, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP won $3 million worth of projects for its clients in defense-spending legislation.Â
“It’s a bit hypocritical,” said Republican consultant Eddie Mahe, who isn’t aligned with any presidential candidate. “He profits from it. I don’t think Joe Sixpack is going to buy into that.” (more…)
“We want to clean this city up [...] Collectively, it’s like banging your head against a wall.”Â
That’s Orange City Council Member Jon Dumitru, quoted by The Register at the city council meeting last night. The city council was discussing a set of ordinances, which will be up for more discussion next month, that would ban solicitation from sidewalks next to streets without parking lanes, from private property without the owner’s written permission, and while a solicitor is stopped or standing in a traffic lane, median or driveway apron on a public right of way. Basically, this is seen as a way to prevent immigrant day laborers from soliciting work in Orange.
Oh yes, and another ordinance being considered would require private-property owners who want to run job centers for laborers to obtain a conditional-use permit through the Planning Commission. The fine for violators will be up to $250 for the first offense, $500 for the second, and $1,000 and jail time for the third. Wow, it looks like Orange may be getting awfully serious on cracking down on the day laborers.
Oh, and there were a number of speakers to talk about this issue last night. Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist spoke in support of tougher rules. Marissa Nuncio, an attorney for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, countered Gilchrist by saying that enforcement is ineffective as she encouraged more community dialogue. So who’s right here? What do YOU think about Orange’s crackdown on immigrant day laborers?
Do the laborers have a right to solicit work that would be violated by these ordinances? Do city residents have a right to a clean town that’s being violated by these “unruly” workers? Is there any way to actually enforce these ordinances? What’s the practical solution to this problem?
I want to hear what you have to say about Orange’s proposed crackdown on these workers. Go ahead. Have your say.
Since his very public break with the GOP earlier this year, I think Steven Greenhut has been on a tear. Still no friend of Liberals or Democrats, Steve has shown no favoritism to those on the Right either. What’s the old expression, “The enemy of my enemy is my….” Well, you get the picture.
Just over a year ago, Democrats seized control of Congress because of the voters’ exhaustion with the war in Iraq and disgust at the Republican majority’s increasingly brazen manipulation of the levers of power. Now, less than a year from the next election, little has happened to elevate the voters’ mood — or their impression of the party that ruled the federal government from 2003 through 2006.
The GOP remains burdened with a highly unpopular war; President Bush’s troop “surge†in Iraq, initiated over strong Democratic objections, appears to have diminished the violence but has given no sign that it will lead to a big reduction in U.S. troops anytime soon. The corruption scandals, ethical challenges and settled Beltway mentality that helped drive Republicans into the wilderness have yet to dissolve from public memory.
So, even if Democrats have done little to burnish a reputation for running things any better — as reflected in the extraordinarily low public approval ratings for the Congress they now control — the fact remains: They may not have to. (more…)
Robert Greenwald has been raving about Naomi Klein’s new book, “The Shock Doctrine.”  A week from Thursday, he will be having a conversation with her at a Town Hall Los Angeles event, and we’d love it if you would come. Details are below.Â
Town Hall’s Writers Bloc presents Naomi Klein (”The Shock Doctrine”) in conversation with Robert Greenwald (Brave New Films)”Impassioned, hugely informative, wonderfully controversial, and scary as hell.” -John Le Carre
What do Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in southeast Asia, the War on Terror and the Tiananmen Square Massacre have in common? Where does the influence of the economist Milton Friedman intersect with such cataclysmic events?
New York Times bestselling author and journalist Naomi Klein’s groundbreaking new book explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically, tracing instead the rise of cynical corporate re-engineering to impose unpopular economic systems on societies reeling from shock and disorientation.
Exposing the thinking and the money trail behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is both an alternative history of contemporary capitalism, and a tool to provide shock resistance…for when the next crisis hits.
“Naomi Klein is one of the most important new voices in American journalism today. She has turned globalism inside out, and given us all a new way of looking at our seeming unending disaster in Iraq, and a new way of understanding why we got there.” -Seymour M. Hersh
WHAT: Naomi Klein in conversation with Robert Greenwald
WHEN: Thursday, December 6, 7:30 pm
WHERE: Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills
300 N. Clark Drive, Beverly Hills
Buy tickets: http://townhall-la.org/programs/register/1122
Tickets are $20 and open to the public (you do not need to be a Town Hall member)
Hope to see you there!
Jim Gilliam
Brave New Films
Who knew? But looks like he got some damn good healthcare from a program administered by the Federal Government.
HT to AP:Â
WASHINGTON - Doctors administered an electrical shock to Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart and restored it to a normal rhythm during a 2 1/2 hour hospital visit Monday. The procedure was described as a low-risk, standard practice. Cheney, 66, went home from George Washington University Hospital and was expected back at work on Tuesday. Cheney, who has a history of heart problems, was discovered to have an irregular heartbeat around 7 a.m. when he was seen by doctors at the White House for a lingering cough from a cold. He remained at work throughout the day, joining President Bush in meetings with Mideast leaders. (more…)
Below you will find the RSS Feeds from some of our favorite sites. Most of these are Orange County political blogs, but some have a state and national perspective.
On Tuesday the Orange County Register 
Hey, you! Yeah, you. Are you starting a new Democratic Club? Or are you looking for ways to expand membership of your club? Or are you looking for a way for your club to actually be effective in growing the Democratic Party? Whatever you’re looking to do with your club, you should attend a special 
 
Unlike the Republicans in the State Senate, the Governor doesn’t take policy advice from a blog especially from a blog that continues to ignore the two big elephants in the room (Carona and the rosy financial picture of the California GOP). While its very convenient for conservatives like Jon to blame the state’s financial woes on Democrats, I wonder what the excuse is about the massive shortfall in his own party’s bank account?
We keep hearing about how Republican politicians are leading the way to expose earmark spending. Rep. John Campbell (R-Irvine) has emerged as a champion of this effort despite his own well-documented record of voting for all sorts of earmarks when the Republicans controlled Congress.
Since his very public break with the GOP earlier this year, I think Steven Greenhut has been on a tear. Still no friend of Liberals or Democrats, Steve has shown no favoritism to those on the Right either. What’s the old expression, “The enemy of my enemy is my….” Well, you get the picture.
Dear friends,
Who knew? But looks like he got some damn good healthcare from a program administered by the Federal Government.
