Time to save the government!!

The U.S. Supreme Court has finally given away the entire store to corporations. (They’ve been gradually doing so for the past thirty-five years — see my essay on campaign finance reform on my law offices page.) If we want to return to government “of, by, and for the people,” we need to act. Click on the link below to get a bumper sticker and connect to the movement to take back America. 

UN Report from Haiti

The following report from the Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been edited to remove internal contact information and to clarify abbreviations and subject headlines.

The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.

Haiti – Earthquake
Situation Report #4
15 January 2010

This report was issued by the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), New York. The next report will be issued on or around 16 January 2010.

I. HIGHLIGHTS/KEY PRIORITIES
– Logistics and the lack of transport remain the key constraints to the delivery of aid. Needs are still being identified as access becomes possible and as assessments begin to take place.
– Displaced populations are currently scattered across multiple locations where there is open space. Temporary shelters urgently need to be established.
– Fifteen sites have been identified for distribution of relief items. World Food Program reached 13,000 people today with food, jerry cans and water purification tablets (provided by International Office for Migration (IOM)).
– 26 search-and-rescue teams are on the ground and deployed to priority sites. No additional urban search-and-rescue teams should be deployed at this stage.
– A Flash Appeal for US$562 million was launched in New York today to cover 3 million people for six months.

II. SITUATION OVERVIEW

180 Tons Delivered
Flights carrying humanitarian aid are arriving in Port-au-Prince with medical supplies, medical teams, search-and-rescue teams, food and non-food items. A total of 180 tons of relief supplies have arrived in-country so far. Operations are heavily constrained due to the lack of fuel, transport, communications and handling capacity at the airport. Some flights are being re-routed through Santo Domingo airport, which is also becoming congested.

Focus: Search and Rescue
Response efforts are focused on search and rescue, medical assistance, the disposal of dead bodies and providing temporary shelter. There is also a need for food and water purification tablets. Fifteen distribution centres have been identified in Port-au-Prince for the distribution of relief aid, including high-energy biscuits and ready-to-eat meals.

Field Hospitals Coming Online
Twenty-six search-and-rescue teams are on the ground and deployed to priority sites. No further teams are required. It was also announced there are sufficient offers of field hospitals. Two field hospitals arrived in-country yesterday. Three more were expected to arrive today from Colombia, Jordan and Brazil. Two US field hospitals will arrive in the coming days one on Saturday that will be deployed next to the Coast Guard clinic at Killick and the other will arrive on 19 January with a 25 bed, two operating room unit with surgical teams.

Identification of bodies remains a problem, in conjunction with assigning responsibility for the recovery of bodies. The Government is identifying various grave sites. No reliable figures are available on the extent of fatalities.

Lack of Clean Water and Sanitation
World Health Organization considers water and sanitation a priority, given that only 50 percent of Haiti’s population normally has access to clean water. There are 13 trucks of bottled water, courtesy of a Brazilian private company, arriving from the Dominican Republic today. Hospitals have been badly affected by water shortages, according to ICRC.

An unidentified number of hospitals are still functioning, but structural damage assessments need to be conducted to establish if the constructions are safe. ICRC workers in Port-au-Prince distributed medical assistance to five major hospitals and clinics, and to smaller facilities set up by local doctors in areas with a high concentration of earthquake survivors.

Makeshift camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are scattered throughout the affected areas. UNICEF is collaborating with World Food Programme to share cargo space on a flight that will leave on 16 January from Dubai,

All Schools In Port-au-Prince Have Collapsed
The Government reported that all schools in Port-au-Prince have collapsed, so a 15-day school closure has been announced. Re-establishing radio transmission capacity is a priority to reach approximately 80 percent of the Port-au-Prince population.

Tracing Family Members in Haiti through ICRC Website
ICRC has activated a website [http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/familylinks] for tracing family members within Haiti. The aim is to accelerate the process of restoring contact between separated family members. It is managed by ICRC, in cooperation with the tracing services of the Haitian Red Cross Society and of National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies throughout the world.

Haiti is currently at UN Security Phase 3. This will implicate ongoing operations in terms of limiting the ability to move around the city and work at night (which is also hindered by the lack of electricity). Patrols reported that the situation is calm in general, but there are reports of stone throwing at passing vehicles, looting and acts of vandalism. ICRC has inspected several prisons. The central prison was completely destroyed, meaning up to 4,000 prisoners have escaped.

International Office for Migration (IOM) staff at Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic report that although the situation is calm, traffic is increasing. International Office for Migration (IOM) reports a 10 percent increase in the number of Haitians trying to cross the border at the Jimaní border. A similar influx of people has been witnessed in the northern Haitian cities of St Marc, Gonaives and Cap Haitien, which were less affected by the earthquake.

A Flash Appeal was launched today in New York for $562 million to assist an estimated 3 million severely affected people over the next six months. It presents a rapidly developed initial response plan and funding requests, based on available information, estimates and inference. Twelve NGOs, 16 UN organizations and the International Organization for Migration are included in the appeal.

Acting Special Representative Edmond Mulet has arrived in-country and has assumed full control over MINUSTAH. Assistant Secretary General Tony Banbury will serve as the deputy SRSG. MINUSTAH and the humanitarian community will begin joint daily media briefings at the logistics base starting on 16 January.

III. HUMANITARIAN NEEDS AND RESPONSE
The country team in Haiti has already mobilized five clusters: Logistics (Lead: World Food Program); Camp Coordination and Camp Management (Lead: International Office for Migration (IOM)); WASH (Lead: UNICEF); Health (Lead: World Health Organization); Food (Lead: World Food Program). In addition, it is planned to mobilize the following clusters: Agriculture (Lead: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)) [it is expected that Food and Agriculture will merge in-country to form the 'Food Security Cluster']; Protection (Lead: OHCHR); Nutrition (Lead: UNICEF); Education (Lead: UNICEF); Emergency Telecoms: (Lead: World Food Program); Early Recovery (Lead: UNDP).

Global clusters are in the process of deploying dedicated coordination capacity to Haiti. All clusters have been requested to coordinate the movement of goods through the Logistics Cluster to avoid a backlog of goods at the airport. It is also critical to ensure harmonization of needs assessment, within and between clusters.

LOGISTICS
The US military is dispatching a Navy aircraft carrier and large-deck amphibious ship, as well as military transport aircraft and assessment teams to Haiti. The ship is expected to arrive today carrying, among other items, 12 helicopters. It will assume control of air traffic.

The Logistics Cluster recommends that Santo Domingo is used as the primary entry point for humanitarian relief destined for Haiti due to Port-au-Prince airport operating at diminished capacity. Some flights have been diverted to the Dominican Republic and Turks and Caicos Islands. There is no fuel available. Aircraft should plan at least one hour of holding fuel and enough extra fuel to get to a secondary airport after departing.

1) Health (World Health Organization), Logistics (World Food Program) and Telecomms (World Food Program) have already deployed large teams which are scheduled to arrive with equipment in Port-au-Prince in the next 24-48 hours, access permitted; WASH (UNICEF) and Emergency Shelter (International Office for Migration (IOM)/Red Cross Red Crescent (IFRC)) are deploying smaller teams and have stand-by teams ready; Protection (OHCHR) will send a cluster-coordinator, while Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) is dispatching a three-person team to support protection activities; Camp Coordination and Camp Management (International Office for Migration (IOM)) has deployed a specialist to look into Camp Coordination and Camp Management issues given the likelihood of this sector to be established.

The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.

2) Three hangers of warehouse space have been identified at the Port-au-Prince airport for storage and inventory of relief items.

The port remains non operational. The seaport in the Dominican Republic is being assessed for its suitability for receiving relief supplies. Panama is also likely to be used as a logistics hub.

Main urban roads in Port-au-Prince (including the airport road) are being cleared by MINUSTAH and the Brazilian battalion. Major axes are open. The road from Jacmel to Port-au-Prince is passable for “all terrain” vehicles (i.e. 4WD). The road from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince is becoming congested with the movement of personnel and cargo.

The World Food Program, United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) is launching a project to provide air support to the humanitarian community (proposal for 2 helicopters, 2 passenger fixed-wing aircraft and 1 cargo aircraft).

At the request of the Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator, World Food Program has submitted a formal request to MSB (former SRSA) for base-camp modules to support UN humanitarian workers due to the destruction of the UN compound. MSB is arranging for the equipment and support staff to run a 200-person camp. It is scheduled to arrive in Port-au-Prince on 16 and 17 January.

The Logistics Cluster will co-locate a liaison officer within the MINUSTAH EJOC for the duration of the emergency to facilitate coordination.

FOOD
World Food Program distributions today included high-energy biscuits, jerry cans and water purification tablets (provided by International Office for Migration (IOM)) to 13,000 people in the following areas: Place Boyer, Champs de mars, Delmas 33 and Hospital de la Paix. There remains an urgent need for ready-to-eat foods (Meals-Ready-to-Eat and High-Energy Biscuits). World Food Program aims to assist 1 million people in the next 15 days.

World Food Program national staff have done assessments in the areas where they live, providing reliable information on people in need and distribution locations.

HEALTH
World Health Organization has deployed specialists to establish supply chains, and water and sanitation engineers to help restore shattered water and sanitation networks, communicable disease specialists, experts in trauma care, and public-health officers World Health Organization can advise on the management of dead bodies. At least 13 countries in the Americas have confirmed the deployment of medical teams.

Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization is establishing a field office in Jimaní (Dominican Republic) to serve as a permanent bridge between this border city and to Port-au-Prince (approximately a 90-minute journey). The office will be a staging/transfer point for emergency humanitarian supplies and personnel needed in the Haiti response operation.

Warehouses in the Dominican Republic lack space for supplies, and new donations are coming in rapidly. Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization has been collaborating with USAID and Management Sciences for Health (MSH) to exchange logistics information regarding medicines and medical supplies. The LSS/SUMA humanitarian supply management system will be installed in Jimaní to handle the management and distribution of resources.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) participated in a joint UN mission to hospitals along the border on 13 and 14 January. Patients are crossing the border to get treatment, but services are insufficient. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is concerned with the lack of supplies, especially for pregnant and delivering women. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is working to strengthen the capacity of these overstretched facilities with health kits and support staff, including midwives, nurses and doctors.

It is estimated that one quarter of the impacted population are women of child-bearing age, with thousands of pregnant women among them. Haiti has the highest rate of maternal death in the region: 670 deaths per 100,000 live births. With limited or no access to health facilities, pregnant women are at an even greater risk for complications and death related to pregnancy and childbirth.

The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.

WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE (WASH)
WASH coordination has been established in Port-au-Prince. Meetings are taking place every day at 3 p.m. local time at the DINEPA (Direction Nationale de l’Eau Potable et Assainissement) office in Port-au-Prince. One WASH Cluster response team member has arrived in Port-au-Prince. One WASH specialist from UNICEF is in the Dominican Republic. No further information about WASH activities is available at this time due to communications constraints.

SHELTER
International Organization for Migration (International Office for Migration (IOM)) reports that the urgent needs for shelter are tents, jerry cans, aquatabs, kitchen and hygiene kits, mosquito nets, plastic sheeting, water bladders and tools, which should allow for the quick establishment of temporary settlements for the displaced.

EMERGENCY TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Phone communication remains difficult in most of the capital. However, text messages are getting through. Internet connections are possible in some areas, but constant access remains difficult.

Ericsson Response is planning to repair the mobile network system, with the support of DFS/DPKO and World Food Program. Ericsson Response volunteers will deploy shortly to ensure proper installation and service delivery for approximately 1,000 subscribers to be connected. OCHA will take the coordination role for service allocation for the humanitarian community.

PROTECTION
At the global Protection Cluster meeting, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC)) was asked to support the OHCHR in its role as leader of the Protection Cluster in Haiti. The OHCHR is planning to send a protection team of three to four Human Rights Officers. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) will contribute with three additional protection staff. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC)’s role will focus on protection, including border monitoring.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says that it is crucial to put mechanisms in place to prevent and address gender-based violence. In Haiti, 27 percent of women are reported to be victims of some type of physical violence. Sexual and gender-based violence are often exacerbated in these extreme situations, posing a serious concern for women and young girls affected by the earthquake.

AGRICULTURE
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) office remains intact. Ten cars are available in Les Cayes, Fort Liberté, Gonaïves, Hinches and Jimani. Two experienced staff will arrive in Port-au-Prince on 18 January to begin Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s agriculture sector assessment activities and contribute to coordination activities. In the coming week, more emergency personnel will arrive in Haiti to support the current Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) team.

IV. COORIDINATION
The Humanitarian Country Team, under the United Nations Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General /Humanitarian Coordinator, holds primary responsibility for the coordination and provision of humanitarian assistance by the UN and partners. In the context of the integrated mission, MINUSTAH’s operational capacity may be drawn upon in order to support the UN’s operational response to natural disasters and other major humanitarian emergencies. The level of casualties sustained by Government civil servants and the damage to public buildings has significantly reduced the capacity of national authorities to lead and coordinate the response.

Concerns are raised that a large incidence of unsolicited and uncoordinated influx of humanitarian personnel and supplies entering into the country could stretch limited, critical logistical resources and impact the delivery of assistance. NGO consortia have been asked to play a role in monitoring and assessing the capabilities of voluntary organizations wishing to help.

The United Nations Disaster Assessment & Coordination (UNDAC) team continues to coordinate the On-Site Operations and Coordination Center (OSOCC) that has been established near the MINUSTAH logbase. A Senior OCHA Civil-Military Coordination Officer has been dispatched to Washington to discuss coordination efforts with USAID and the U.S. military.

The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.

V. FUNDING
The Haiti Flash Appeal for US$562 million was launched today in New York. The appeal was prepared in coordination with Haitian authorities. It represents 12 NGOs, 16 UN organizations and the International Organization for Migration, and is based on their need to assist an estimated 3 million severely affected people over an initial period of six months.

Thoughts on the Oakland Special Election

Yesterday, I got my absentee ballot in the mail.  That might not seem so special, except that here in Oakland, everyone is getting an absentee ballot in the mail.  This is the first time I can recall a mail-ballot-only municipal election.  (There have been, of course, numerous mail-only elections for assessment districts and the like.)  With the high and increasing cost of running elections, it’s probably the wave of the future.  In fact, while there will be no polling places open, the City has called a special election for July 21st.

As to the subject of the election itself, the City Council called this special election as a last-gasp effort to avoid truly draconian cuts in the Oakland city budget.  Even as it is, the City is looking eliminating maintenance for many city parks, cutting back or eliminating a number of city programs, and generally cutting back city services.

Part of this is the City’s own doing (e.g., the failure of the city council to maintain adequate oversight over Mayor Jerry Brown and his city administrator as they spent money the city didn’t really have), but much of it is the result of a “perfect storm” of outside factors.  Those factors include the dismal state of the local, state, and national economy (and associated drop in business tax and sales tax revenue), the precipitous drop in the Oakland real estate market, with consequent drop in property tax  and transfer tax revenue, the cutbacks in state contributions to local programs (hopefully to be partially offset by federal “stimulus” dollars), and, of course, the long-term impacts of Prop. 13.  Added to that is the self-inflicted wound that Oakland voters perpetrated last November by enacting the “Kids First II” measure, Measure OO, which funded non-city kids’ programs at the expense of the city budget.

The four measures on the ballot are the city council’s attempt to reduce the damage from Kids First II and cobble together some additional short-term revenue sources.  If these measures fail, even more drastic budget cuts are lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce.

What are the measures?  Measure C increases the City’s hotel tax from 11% to 14 % to fund cultural and educations institutions (including the Oakland Museum, Oakland Zoo, and Chabot Science Center), as well as the convention & visitors’ bureau, that are currently funded from the general fund.  It requires a 2/3 majority vote to pass.   If it fails, those institutions will probably lose their City funding, and some or all of them may be forced to close down.

Measure D would replace the Kids First II measure (Measure OO).  That measure dedicated a percentage of total city revenue to kids’ programs.  Measure D would change this to a percentage of unrestricted general fund revenues.  This makes far more sense, since restricted funds are locked into their uses and essentially are “untouchable”.  It requires only a majority vote (as did Measure OO).  If Measure D fails, Measure OO would remain in effect and the City would be forced to cut many other services in order to provide the mandated level of funding for (non-city) childrens’ programs.  Measure OO was, to put it bluntly, a stupid and poorly-written measure.  We shot ourselves in the foot by passing it.  We’ll be adding a second bullet hole if we don’t pass Measure D.

Measure F would increase the business tax on medical marijuana sold in the City from $1.20 per $1000 (0.12%) to $18 per $1000 (1.8%).  It’s a whopping increase, but the current tax is miniscule.  (Compare it to the roughly 10% sales tax on general merchandise!)  As a general tax, this would only require majority vote approval.  Taxing medical marijuana may not be the best way in the world to gain revenue (a city tax on cigarettes or alcohol would be far better), but it’s one of the few politically acceptable revenue sources that isn’t pre-empted by state or federal law.  Again, if this goes down to defeat, there will be even more programs cut from the city budget.

Bottom line — If you don’t mind dealing with humongous potholes in the streets, broken streetlamps that don’t get fixed, closed fire stations, and being put on permanent hold when you call 911, by all means vote these measures down.  It’ll be one more step towards reducing government services to the point where government can be “drowned in the bathtub.”

If, on the other hand, you’d like Oakland to be something other than the world’s biggest cesspool, I’d recommend a YES vote on these four measures.

Incidentally, here’s the Oakland League of Women Voters’ recommendations on the ballot measures.  Like me, they recommend a YES vote on all four:

http://www.lwvoakland.org/VOTER-June-2009.html#election

Don’t forget, you do need to mail your ballot in so that it’s received on or before July 21st.  (Unlike a tax return, just a postmark won’t do the trick.)

“Recycling” vs Zero-Waste

This is a repost of a short article by Paul Palmer (see link at end).

Moving company to offer electronics recycling services (from Waste & Recycling News)

July 20, 2009 – NorthStar Moving Corp. is partnering with E-Cycle Environmental to offer electronics recycling services to its customers.Individuals who are moving can request the service from NorthStar, a Los Angeles-based moving company. E-Cycle Environmental employees will pick up old electronics, such as computers, televisions, batteries and other devices. The Los Angeles-area based electronics recycler will recycle the items and guarantees it will not export material to developing countries.

“Most people, during the course of their move, throw out more stuff than at any other time of the year,” said Laura McHolm, co-founder of NorthStar moving. “We know our clients don´t just want to throw things in the garbage to end up in a landfill. They are not interested in faux-green, they want a truly green solution.”
_______________________________________

You notice that there is no indication of what they WILL do with the goods, only what they WON’T do. This is the mendacious state of faux recycling today. There is actually no such thing as the workmanlike recycling of electronic parts. This is the elephant in the room that every recycler and politician wants to ignore. There is only the low grade chopping and burning that goes on in China and Africa. What goes on in Arizona is similar but a bit less smoky. Everyone rushes to condemn these as “bad recycling”  but you will not find one article anywhere proposing an alternative. There isn’t one - (well there could be but you won’t find it in use anywhere). And yet most articles on the subject are packed with pious invocations of “proper recycling” as though it existed.

It’s like the clean coal initiative. There is no such thing as carbon dioxide sequestration and won’t be, at least until Peter Pan and Tinkerbell come out of hiding to run for elected office. But it is wonderful for propaganda.

Hydrogen fuel cells are another one. Hydrogen is not a “fuel” but it’s wonderful to be able to point out that the product is water. As if that mattered. What is produced where the hydrogen is made? That’s the magician’s hand to keep an eye on.

On the other hand, Zero Waste approaches have no problem coming up with effective, realistic plans for reusing electronic parts and for targeted research programs for new and better methods. The usual principles, outlined on the Zero Waste Institute website apply. Modularization, standardization, keeping dissimilar materials separated and more. All design involves parameters that are usually decided on in favor of wasting because it is made so easy.

Paul Palmer

www.zerowasteinstitute.org

The spook in the White House

Revealed!  There was a spook in the White House!!!  No, it wasn’t the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, nor that of his ten year old son, William Lincoln, who died in the White House in 1862.  Nor was it any of the other U.S. Presidents who died in office.  This spook is still alive and very much kicking.

As revealed this week, former Vice President Dick Cheney was instrumental in establishing a secret spying program in the CIA, and then hiding it from Congress.  Here’s an article on the program and Cheney’s role.

Of course, this news is not a big surprise to those of us who’ve gotten to know Cheney’s ways over the eight years when he pulled the strings on W’s puppet regime.  It all goes along with Bush-Cheney’s conception of the “imperial presidency”, where supposedly the Constitution granted the President (and, in his stead, the Vice President) plenary power to do whatever the hell they wanted to the country.

Doesn’t fit with your understanding of what the Constitution says?  No problem.  The Bush Jr./Bush Sr./ Reagan  majority on the Supreme Court stands ready, willing, and able to show you how to read it properly.  (Of course, George W & Co. didn’t quite get the chance to finish the job right in terms of the Court’s membership.  Those darned liberal justices were unwilling to retire or die quickly enough to pump up Bush’s majority position.  So now Cheney is  stuck with only wishy-washy some-time 5-4 majority to defend his actions, depending on how Justice Kennedy happens to feel on the issue.)

No matter.  The Bushes picked a bunch of young and healthy reactionaries to fill their court slots, so come 2012 when Sarah Palin sashays into the White House, she’ll certainly be able to complete the task.  (Of course, Palin’s landslide victory would come along with veto-proof Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, easily able to confirm anyone short of Adolph Hitler.)

In the meantime, wouldn’t it be nice if Cheney could be indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and sentence so at leas he’d spend a few days in a federal prison contemplating his illegal actions before Sarah Palin grants him (and George W.) a full pardon?

New poll supports retaining 2/3 majority on the budget, but poll itself is highly suspect.

A new poll done by students at U.C. Riverside reports that a majority of Californians still support the requirement that the state budget be passed by a 2/3 majority. The poll also indicates that Californians continue to support “ballot box budgeting” — setting budgetary priorities through the initiative process. However, some crucial details on the polling are missing, raising questions about its validity. In addition, some of the data on the sample of voters used indicates it was highly skewed, again raising questions about whether the results can be trusted.

The poll was based on telephone interviews by UCR students with 276 respondents. That in itself is a relatively low number. Consequently, the poll results have a relatively high degree of uncertainty — plus or minus 5.9%. Nevertheless, Professor David Crow, who taught the class taking the poll, insists that the differences measured were large enough to be significant.

A more troubling problem is that the poll gives no data on the geographic distribution of the respondents. The results of the May special election drive home the heterogeneity among the state’s voters, also demonstrated in the November 2008 general election results. (See earlier posts on those subjects for county-by-county maps.) Consequently, a skewed geographic distribution of respondents would likely result in a skewed set of poll results.

Even more troubling was one set of information that was disclosed — the income distribution of the respondents. The largest single class of respondents — accounting for over a quarter of those who agreed to supply financial data — had incomes of over $100,000 per year. This is far above the state’s median income and indicates that the poll’s sampling was badly skewed.
An earlier pre-election statewide poll had show similar results of support for retaining the 2/3 majority requirement, but it is possible that the new post-election budget cuts could change some voters’ minds. This poll, however, doesn’t appear to give a trustworthy answer to that question.

Here are the poll results:
UCR_California_Voters_May09[1]

And here’s a link to a Sacramento Bee blog entry that uncritically accepted the poll’s results. (tsk, tsk!)
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/022708.html

Equality California’s Campaign Stategy

Equality California, one of the main groups working to overturn Proposition 8 and regain marriage equality for all Californians, has started working towards qualifying a 2010 ballot measure.  They’ve started opening field offices and hiring community organizers in those parts of the state where Prop. 8 collected most of its votes.  (see previous post for my analysis, which generally agrees with theirs.

Here’s a video where their campaign director (who led the fight to block repeal of Massachusetts’ gay marriage statute) explains their strategy [and solicits financial support]:

County-by-county results for Prop 8

Now that the California Supreme Court has decided that Proposition 8 is valid, the focus has shifted to the eventual political battle for its repeal.  (Two initiative petitions for its repeal have already begun circulating.)  The old saying that knowledge is power is still true.  If you want to know whose minds need to be changed, the place to start is the county-by county results for Prop. 8 last November.

Here’s the California Secretary of State’s map showing the county-by-county results:

County-by-county Prop 8 election results

and here’s a link to the Secretary of State’s ”flash-propelled” map:

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2008_general/maps/returns/props/prop-8.htm

  If you mouse over a county, the county’s vote totals will show up.  While some rural counties (like Tulare) had upwards of 75% YES, the counties that gave the big numerical pluralities to YES were San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, which gave almost a 200,000 vote plurality each (voting Yes by a two-to-one margin).  Fresno, San Diego, and Kern Counties each contributed about another 100,000 plurality to the Yes vote.  Together, these five counties account for the entire YES on 8 victory margin, and then some.  (A lot of other smaller counties also voted Yes, but they were balanced by the large counties — like San Francisco, Alameda, and San Mateo, that favored a No vote.)  Of course, Los Angeles county is so huge that a major shift there could override almost anything else.  As it turns out, it split almost right down the middle, with a very slight plurality for Yes.   A 5% shift in LA County’s vote would amount to 150,000 votes one way or the other.  Of course each of these counties might need a different strategy to win over those who voted for Prop. 8.  It’d be worth looking at the breakdown of the Prop. 8 results by ethnicity and religion to understand better whose minds need to be changed.

On Torture, the Constitution, and the Exclusionary Rule

I’m going to shift gears today from my recent series of posts and talk about something that has nothing to do with elections or California politics.  Instead, I’m going to discuss the question of what to do with the prisoners currently being housed at the “GITMO” — The Guantanamo prison facility built to house terrorism suspects.

President Obama has proposed dividing the GITMO prisoners into five categories, each with a different proposed treatment.  To cut to the chase, I agree with Obama about four of his five categories, but I take strong exception to how he proposes to deal with the fifth category.

The easiest category to address is those prisoners who apparently did nothing wrong — other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Those prisoners should be promptly released.  They should also (although Obama hasn’t proposed this) be paid generous compensation for their wrongful imprisonment and be offered the formal apology of the U.S. government for its misdeed in holding them these many years without good cause.

A second category, at the other end of the spectrum, is those for whom there is good evidence supporting criminal prosecution on terrorism or other criminal charges.  They need to be brought to the U.S. and quickly brought to trial, with the full protections accorded by the U.S. Constitution.  Hopefully, justice will be done.

The third category is those for whom there is strong evidence of illegal acts of war.  They need to be treated as prisoners of war and tried under the military justice system, although again with the proper Constitutional protections afforded by that system.

A fourth category is those who committed no offense under U.S. law, but appear to have committed criminal acts properly addressed by another country’s justice system.  Unless there is good evidence that trial by that country would amount to unwarranted persecution, those prisoners should be promptly extradited to the appropriate country and brought to trial there. 

Finally, there’s one last, and highly controversial, category — those for whom there is good evidence of criminal offenses, including terrorism, but some of the evidence necessary for conviction was obtained by the use of torture or other means that violate U.S. Constitutional rights.  President Obama has proposed that these prisoners be relegated to a kind of permanent confinement limbo — detention without trial — due to their inherent danger if released.  I find this highly problematic.  It maintains the same fiction that the President bravely spoke out against during the presidential campaign — that practical expediency can justify voiding the Constitution’s protections for individual rights.  That assertion was wrong when applied to hundreds of prisoners; it’s still just as wrong even if only applied to two or three.

The crux of the problem is the exclusionary rule.  This rule, adopted by the Warren Court in the 1950s and 1960s, says that if evidence was obtained in violation of a defendant’s constitutional rights, that evidence cannot be used to convict the defendant.  A corollary is what’s often referred to as the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine.  That rule says that not only is the improperly-obtained evidence excluded; so is any evidence developed based on the excluded evidence.  A classic example would be a murder suspect who’s interrogated without informing him of his Miranda (Fifth Amendment) rights.  If the suspect, during that interrogation, tells the police where he hid the murder weapon, not only his admission but also the murder weapon itself would be excluded from use as evidence.   The Supreme Court explained that part of the rule’s purpose was prophylactic — to deter police from being tempted to use improper techniques by denying them the “fruit” of such improper and unconstitutional actions.

The exclusionary rule is a very powerful and important rule.  It has done much to reform the activities of police and prosecutors.  However, courts have come to recognize a wide variety of exceptions to the exclusionary rule — situations where the exclusion of evidence isn’t warranted in spite of the Constitutional violation.  I would suggest that this last class of GITMO prisoners may warrant creation of an additional category of exception.

There’s little question that some GITMO prisoners were tortured.  There’s also little question that the evidence obtained by such torture, while potentially valuable, has reduced evidentiary value because it was obtained through torture.  Much psychological evidence shows that, under torture, a prisoner will say almost anything, including obvious falsehoods, to stop the pain.  There is, further, little question that an exclusionary rule absolutely prohibiting the use of evidence obtained during torture is a powerful deterrent to the use of torture.  Unfortunately, under the Bush Administration, it was apparently not powerful enough. 

We’re now left with a small group of prisoners who, under torture, revealed information implicating them of serious crimes.  Presumably, additional corroborating evidence has since been obtained, perhaps as the “fruit” of information obtained through torture.  The problem is that if all this evidence is excluded, there may well not be enough evidence to obtain a conviction.  Still, it’s not right or Constitutional to hold these prisoners indefinitely without allowing them the opportunity to try to prove their innocence.  What to do?

My suggestion, which would eventually have to be accepted by a court, probably the U.S. Supreme Court, would be to create a very limited and partial exception to the exclusionary rule for this situation.  To begin with, this exception would need to be retrospective only.  Its very creation would serve notice that it could not be invoked to “save” evidence obtained from future application of torture.  Second, the exception, while it would allow the introduction of evidence obtained through the unconstitutional use of torture at GITMO or other locations, would also allow the defense to introduce any and all evidence relevant to showing the questionable value of that evidence in terms of its credibility.  Third, and perhaps crucially, the exception would create a presumption that evidence obtained through torture was not credible, and the burden would be on the prosecution to show, by clear and convincing evidence, that the evidence had sufficient credibility to allow its introduction.  

Such a rule would be far from perfect, which is an important reason why its use would need to be limited to being retrospective only.  If allowed to be use in future instances, it could fatally undermine the prophylactic value of the exclusionary rule and encourage extremely dangerous abuse of the state’s police powers.  Further, the rule would also sap the value of the “poisonous fruit” doctrine, because the secondary evidence might not be directly linked to the torture, and therefore might have reasonably high credibility.  (Going back to the previous example, while the suspect’s confession might be of questionable credibility, the murder weapon, including such things as fingerprints, evidence of recent use, etc., would not share that lack of credibility.)

While the Bush administration’s actions have created a Hobson’s choice for dealing with those who underwent torture, the limited exception to the exclusionary rule that I have outlined seems far preferable to President Obama’s (and former President Bush’s) proposal of permanent unconstitutional detention.

Courage Campaign Petition

The Courage Campaign — a California progressive Democratic group with a strong on-line presence — is helping to circulate a short-and-sweet petition asking that the budget, and taxes, be approved by a simple majority vote.  Here’s the website for the on-line petition

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/Declaration

It’ll be interesting to see whether this initiative goes anywhere.  It obviously runs directly counter to the right wing’s continued drumbeat for making it as hard as possible to fund the state (and local) government.  Thus far, Californians have appeared to like that beat, voting for Prop. 13, Prop. 218, and other ballot measures that have tried to curtail government revenue raising and expenditures.  (On the other hand, Californians have also passed numerous measures that either raised taxes for specific purposes or mandated specific government spending.)

The question is whether the past few years of repeated legislative stalemate over the budget have soured Californians (or at least a majority of them) on continuing to insist on supermajorities to approve government monetary decisions.

A recent Field poll (see my recent post, “California – State of Unreality”) said Californians still wanted to keep the 2/3 vote rule.  Still, in polling, it’s all-important how you ask the question.  I think things will have to get considerably worse to convince Californians to make it easier for government to access the purse.  Given the way things are going, however, that could happen pretty fast!