The San Francisco Chronicle Politics Blog reports this afternoon that Sen. John McCain has been the successful bidder for the services of one Steve Schmidt, former White House aide to Dick Cheney, known as "Karl Rove's lieutenant."

Schmidt, who will be "a senior advisor" for the McCain campaign, ran the Bush 2004 reelection campaign warroom, and was the point man for Bush on Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court (the tears, remember the tears?)

But since January 2005, Schmidt has been employed as Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign manager, and his successful "repositioning" of the GOP governor was noted far and wide in elite Republican circles. As the item recounts, and as was reported right after the election in the Sacramento Bee, a number of GOP presidential contenders were interested in hiring Schmidt. Reporter Carla Marinucci names Rudi Giuliani and Mitt Romney, for two. I guess McCain bid the highest? Or Schmidt thinks he's the most likely winner? Or?

Yes, it's true, our greenwashed governor isn't even waiting until after November to demonstrate that his "green" photo op in August was first and foremost a campaign event.

CA Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, sponsor of the global warming bill that Schwarzenegger signed to international fanfare, appears to be shocked by the governor's George-Bush-like behavior. He told the SF Chronicle:

"You can't rewrite a law through executive order.... This is totally inconsistent with the intent of the law and with the way that it is written."

Ummm, yeah. Speaker Núñez, that used to be true; perhaps you weren't aware of the Bush administration's record of using "signing statements" to disregard laws they don't like, but don't want to veto for political reasons? Too bad you didn't figure out the truth about Schwarzenegger's continuing agenda to consolidate power in the Executive Branch before you helped him take a big lead in this election back in August by giving his handlers the "truthiness" they needed to portray him as "green" and "bipartisan."

more from "Núñez slams governor on emission law" below the fold.

The California Nurses Union, sponsor of Prop. 89, the Clean Money ballot initiative, has just released a jammin' new music video, "About Time for 89"

http://www.cleanmoneyelections.org/...

Prop. 89 webmaster Colette Washington rocks to a soulful hiphop beat, with a powerful smokey voice and lyrics that cut to the chase:

Political corruption is on the rise
Donations are comin' in super-size
Californians need a little bit of love
But we can't get in to the "Big Boys Club"

A handheld camera shows the kind of enthusiastic crowds of Californians that defeated Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election power grab last year.

Why do we need Prop. 89? More on the flip

9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste "confirmed to McClatchy Newspapers" today that George Tenet had given secret testimony to the 9/11 Commission in January 2004 about his attempts to convince the White House about the urgency of the threat from bin Laden in the summer of 2001. Tenet told the 9/11 Commission he was willing to testify publicly about the briefings he'd given Rice -- and Ashcroft and Rumsfeld! -- in July 2001, and he'd even showed the commissioners slides from the PowerPoint presentation he'd prepared for the July briefings.

Ben-Veniste did NOT explain why the 9/11 Commissioners left these briefings out of their report -- or why he (as late as yesterday) was still lying about what the 9/11 Commission knew. Instead he:

referred questions about why the commission omitted any mention of the briefing in its report to Zelikow, the report's main author. Zelikow didn't respond to e-mail and telephone queries from McClatchy Newspapers.

I say "briefings" because it's not just "the Rice briefing," folks -- yes, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft got the damned briefing, too:

My regional daily, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, has been doing a series of stories about how a shortage of farm labor this year is affecting North Coast farmers.

Today's story by Glenda Anderson is a heart-wrenching one about pear growers in Lake County who are seeing a third to a half of the "best pear crop in 45 years" rot on the trees.

Why? Because there aren't enough farmworkers. Why?

Well, according to one pear grower and packer, Toni Scully:

An immigration crackdown along the Mexican border, combined with Congress' failure to approve a program to allow farmworkers into the country on a temporary basis, are the primary causes.

"They (legislators) all say they love the family farmer, but I don't feel that love," Scully said. "They're putting me out of business."

I'm surprised -- given the endless attention to the debate on illegal immigration around here in recent days -- that I don't see anything about the "extraordinary" immigration deal announced this morning by a bipartisan group of Senators.

I don't have any special insight into the deal, but it sure seems "Senate OKs sweeping overhaul that includes permanent residency for 7 mil illegal residents" -- such sweeping legislation being "based on a bipartisan bill authored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass," is worth noting in a diary.

yes, the worker-friendly buyout of Knight-Ridder -- or at least the 12 K-R papers new owner McClatchy wants to unload, including the San Jose Mercury News and the Philadelphia Inquirer -- is still alive.

According to a FAQ posted yesterday on the Newspaper Guild's knightridderwatch.org site, the 12-paper employee buyout proposal is being backed by Yucaipa Companies, a pro-union private equity firm based in Los Angeles, and owned by major Democratic philanthropist and "supermarket magnate" Ron Burkle, 53.

Burkle is "very active in Los Angeles civic affairs, as well as state and national Democratic politics," he is No. 112 on Forbes' list of wealthiest Americans, and he "counts former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore and civil rights leaders like the Rev. Jesse Jackson among his friends and business partners." (btw, he doesn't have a college degree, starting as a stock boy in his dad's small grocery store).

SB 370 yesterday, according to email earlier today from Open Voting Consortium director Alan Dechert.

I don't find any real news about this reported yet on this holiday weekend. anybody else?

and here's today's latest story by Ian Hoffman at the Oakland Tribune, as usual #1 with e-voting coverage: "California to put e-voting to the test: Touch-screen firms must turn over software for security review."

from Times-Picayune breaking news blog:

"Military beefing up presence in Gulf region"

BATON ROUGE -- The Defense Department aims to build a
military force of more than 30,000 across the South
and the Gulf of Mexico to help federal emergency
officials deal with the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.

The group, known as Joint Task Force Katrina, will bring 7,000 active duty soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors from around the United
States to the Gulf region in the next few days to
provide equipment and distribute water and food,
officials said Thursday.

Here's the link and more below.

wtf?... last night, Sen. Dick Durbin's spokesman said a column written for the Los Angeles Times by law professor Jonathan Turley, describing a conversation between Durbin and Judge John Roberts, was "false."

"Not accurate," said spokesman Joe Shoemaker.... "I don't know who was his source. Whoever the source was either got it wrong or Jonathan Turley got it wrong."

But, as it turns out, according to Turley, his two sources for the account of the conversation were: Sen. Durbin himself! -- as well as spokesman Shoemaker.

Turley claims Sen. Durbin told him the story -- in person -- on Sunday morning, in NBC's green room, in between the Sunday talk shows.

Is Turley lying? Is Durbin lying?

well, at least Sen. John Kerry isn't saying, "he's not fillibuster-able," before the hearings even begin, hurray:

from a new AP story:

"Democratic Sen. John Kerry urged the White House on Friday to release "in their entirety" all documents and memos from Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' tenure in two Republican administrations.

"We cannot do our duty if either Judge Roberts or the Bush administration hides elements of his professional record," said the Massachusetts senator who was his party's presidential candidate last year."

"Democratic officials" in the story specifically mention Roberts' documents at the Reagan Library:

My personal theory is that the root of many of our problems at dKos these days is the sheer volume of the diaries, which has overwhelmed the low-key "community policing" and in-diary debunking of the past. So I'd certainly like to see a decrease in "repeat diaries," but just saying "No repeat diaries" and "Follow the rules" isn't going to do that.

In fact, over and over again, those who post repeat diaries are rewarded here with a slot on the Recommended Diaries list.

Anybody interested in the CA governor's election should know the longtime and well-regarded California Director of Elections was unceremoniously fired Tuesday morning, and will be replaced by a major touchscreen voting machine booster who has said repeatedly that paper trails are "a bad idea."

Just-fired elections chief John Mott-Smith had worked in the Sec'y of State's office since 1979, and was "exceptionally competent at his job, well liked and always available."

Who's his replacement? (expected to be announced this morning): former registrar of voters of Alameda County Bradley Clark, a cheerleader for paperless electronic voting machines, who was described by UC Berkeley's j-school newspaper in 2000 as "a driving force in researching and instituting touchscreen machines and bringing them to the attention of Secretary of State Bill Jones, who certified the machines for use in California."

here's a current non-registration-only article from the Oakland Tribune mentioning some of the issues:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_2658265

We've been hearing that Gov. Schwarzenegger's nominee for Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson, is an "affable and moderate" Republican, with "strong experience" and "unimpeachable integrity."

But now, we are also hearing that his transition team includes several members with "too close ties" to the governor's office, and other members likely to be opponents of California's new "paper trail by 2006" rule -- including a lobbyist for the firm representing the now-infamous Diebold Election Systems, as well as Alameda County's former Registrar of Voters, who was "a driving force" behind getting touchscreen machines certified for use in CA.

This A.P. update was posted not long ago on the Newsday site, which has been following this story about the election for state senator in Yonkers:

"With most machines recounted, Spano trails Democrat"

http://tinyurl.com/59kwo

to summarize: Democrat Andrea Stewart-Cousins was down by 1,674 votes before a "double-check" (yes, that's the word the story used) of the voting machines in her district. With the "recanvass" mostly finished, she's now ahead of Republican incumbent Nicholas Spano by 263 votes.

says the San Jose Mercury News in an April 8, 2004 editorial.

"Open Voting Consortium appears to have what it takes to inspire faith in electronic voting."

The consortium is a non-profit group of software engineers and computer scientists who have built a prototype voting system with open-source
software, and voter-verifiable printed ballots. The consortium helped draft legislation here in California that will get us a voter-verified paper record of the vote by 2006.

One point completely missing from the discussion here is just how many Democratic Party grassroots officials and activists have been Dean supporters.

The Democratic Party is just like any other organization -- the grassroots members have different politics and priorities than the top-level officials.

Any "real Democrat" (as opposed to the assholes here who talk about "whining cry babies" and "marching orders from Burlington" and "stay home Deanie babies, you're not real Democrats, and we don't need you anyway") knows that real Democrats want and need every vote they can get.

The other day I posted a diary with links to some of the speculation I'd seen re: Bush choosing McCain as a VP candidate after dumping Cheney.

According to yesterday's Joe Conason column in Salon (premium copy, and well worth going to Salon.com for a day pass), Sen. Kerry is a "close friend" of Sen. McCain.

http://tinyurl.com/2dn9t