Masks For All? Good Luck With That

Huntington Beach is in Orange County, between Los Angeles and San Diego. It's the population center of the 48th congressional district and if you want to know how a reactionary Russian spy and psychotic bigot like Dana Rohrabacher could have been elected to Congress 15 times... just watch the video above and try to get into the heads of his people. The current congressman, freshman Harley Rouda isn't nearly as bad as Rohrabacher. He beat Rohrabacher in the anti-red wave of 2018-- 157,837 (54%) to 136,899 (46%). Rouda ran as a Democrat, but he isn't really a Democrat; he's a moderately conservative Republican who calls himself a New Dem and has quickly earned himself an "F" rating from ProgressivePunch-- 64.47% (out of 100).

CA-48 was almost equally divided in the 2016 presidential race, Hillary edging Señor Trumpanzee 47.9% to 46.2%. The one from that 46.2% cohort introduced themselves in that video. Have you watched it yet. Watch it; it's fun tragic and sad and will help you understand why the U.S. may well wind up with marshall law-- and whole lot of conspiracy theories... a dangerous thing in a country with so many people with semi-automatic weapons.

There is tremendous resistance to social distancing and mask wearing there-- and very aggressively so. The county has been hit hard by the pandemic but that doesn't stop a very vocal part of that 46.2% cohort from claiming it's all a hoax. On Friday the county reported 710 more confirmed COVID cases, bringing their total to 33,358. There have been 556 deaths in Orange County so far.

Orange County doesn't have any Republicans left in their congressional delegation-- unless you still insist on counting Rouda as a Republican-- but it's not what I would call a safely blue county. Still, Bernie won the county in the March primary-- and with a slightly larger margin than he did statewide. Yesterday, Bernie sent a note to his followers-- in Orange County and everywhere else-- about masks and his legislation that would make masks available to everyone in the country. "Tragically, because of the inept leadership of Donald Trump," Bernie wrote, "the United States is losing the struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many thousands of our fellow Americans have unnecessarily died or become ill. Trump has rejected science with regard to the pandemic. We will not. Together, we will fight back and implement policies based on science which will protect the health and well-being of the American people. That's why I am urgently calling for a simple and inexpensive way to protect Americans during the coronavirus pandemic: Masks for All." He explained the bill he's hoping to get through the Senate:

Our goal must be to manufacture and distribute high-quality masks to medical professionals and to every man, woman and child in this country at no cost. And next week, I will introduce legislation to do just that.

...Here is what the legislation would do:

• Direct the Trump administration to use the Defense Production Act to produce and deliver three high-quality, reusable masks to every person in the country.
• Work with state and local governments to deliver masks to homeless shelters, jails, detention centers, testing sites, post offices, pharmacies and other congregate-care settings.

The science is clear: Wearing a mask is the best way to protect ourselves from the coronavirus and save lives, and the widespread use of masks will get Americans back to work sooner and reunite families who have stayed apart.

As the United States reports a record number of new cases-- 4 million total confirmed cases announced this week-- research about mask wearing shows that masks are crucial to decreasing the spread of the coronavirus. When the virus can't easily find hosts, it dies out.

South Korea, one of the more successful countries in responding to the pandemic, began the process of procuring high-quality masks in late February and provided them affordably to its citizens by partnering with pharmacies across the country. Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Germany, Vietnam and dozens of other countries have also demonstrated that as mask wearing became commonplace in public, coronavirus cases were contained. And only when the virus is contained can our society finally go back to normal.

Other countries have successfully provided masks to their people, and now it is time for the United States to do the same.

Not only will widespread mask wearing help save lives-- it can help slow our growing economic crisis as well. One estimate says that widespread use of masks could be worth up to $1 trillion to our economy by preventing shutdowns and getting people back to work earlier.





To make enough high-quality masks for all Americans, this legislation requires the administration to invoke the Defense Production Act, which was written explicitly for these purposes. This will mandate that manufacturers put in place the additional capacity necessary to meet the needs of the public and provide assistance to companies who want to begin producing masks or scale up production. Communities hard hit by job losses could and should benefit greatly from these new employment opportunities.

Unfortunately, given Trump's anti-science mentality, it is absolutely clear that we cannot wait for this administration to take action... Let us not forget: Our country is facing a series of unprecedented crises, but we will get through them as long as we stand together.

Watch this video from the tweet below to better understand what America is up against when it comes to the 46.2% OC cohort deciding that the best way to own the libs is to spread the contagion.

Up the road a bit is Los Angeles. Eric Garcetti also sent an e-mail out yesterday warning the residents that "COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon. It will be with us-- and remain a threat-- for the foreseeable future." He rates it a threat level orange, meaning that "the virus is a danger to all of us and continues to spread throughout the community. In order to stay safe, we need to continue wearing masks, avoid gatherings, wash our hands frequently, and keep physical distance from others... Wearing a mask is particularly important and will help to keep our community safe and reopen our economy.

It's The End Of The World As We Know It? Maybe... And Maybe Soon-- Or Maybe I'm Being Too Alarmist

I was just talking with a very credible candidate for Congress about how an increasingly senile Biden could turn out to be the Democratic nominee; he-- the congressional candidate, not Status Quo Joe-- told me he almost hopes the apocalypse comes soon because he wants to pick up the pieces. Wow! And I thought I was nuts! As speaking of government by the senile, last night, the clownish Trump ran to Sean Hannity on Fox to dispute the WHO report that the death rate for coronavirus is 3.4%, asserting that it's "a false number." Claiming he's "had a lot of conversations with a lot of people," he noted that "They don’t know about the easy cases because the easy cases don’t go to the hospital, they don’t report to doctors or the hospital in many cases so I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under one percent."

Look, I'm no financial advisor but take this warning from me: don't fall into a bull trap. That's when the stock market is plunging and it goes up a bit and fools rush in hoping for a quick profit only to see the plunge continue the following day, taking their investment gamble with it. I think we had one of those yesterday, when the Dow Jones bounced up over a thousand points-- very tempting. Don't do anything crazy today. The Dow headed straight down when it opened this morning and has given back all the fake "winnings" from yesterday.

The American government has quite a lot in common with Iran's government, whose response to the pandemic has been characterized as being motivated entirely by pride, paranoia, secrecy and chaos. Have you ever pictured Señor Trumpanzee as a mullah or even an ayatollah?

Bloomberg News warned that "It is hard to exaggerate the historic significance of Tuesday’s events in the bond market… According to historical work by Robert Shiller, the Nobel laureate economist at Yale University who has reconstructed the 10-year interest rates available in the U.S. back to 1871, it has never before dropped this low. Many momentous events have shaken the U.S. since Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency, but none of them were sufficient to drive long-term money down to such cheap levels." The Financial Times put it more succinctly: "The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield dropped below 1 per cent for the first time on Tuesday, after the Federal Reserve delivered its first emergency rate cut since the financial crisis in order to stave off the long-term economic impact from the spread of the coronavirus." That was first time-- as in first time ever.

That's because markets saw the rate cut-- by a Trump-badgered Fed-- as pure desperation. Canadian financial expert and author Kiril Nikolaev wrote yesterday that emergency interest rate cuts are always bad news for the stock market and-- they're not going to stop this Trump Market from turning into full fledged bear market-- as opposed to a correction. "The Federal Reserve shocked market participants on Tuesday after announcing an aggressive 50-point rate cut. The move was intended to shore up liquidity in an effort to combat the economic impact of the coronavirus. Unfortunately, the big rate reduction did not drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher as expected. On the contrary, the index ended the trading day down nearly 3% despite the Fed’s intervention. This indicates that the market is pricing in factors that cannot be solved by loose monetary policies. Over the last two decades, we’ve seen six instances where the Fed reduced rates by 50 basis points or higher. Every single one of them preceded a bear market."

Since 2001, the Fed has been introducing emergency rate cuts of 50 basis points or higher in an attempt to avert a crisis. History tells us that this strategy doesn’t work. If anything, it’s a sign that the stock market is headed for a monumental collapse.

In 2001, the Federal Reserve cut rates by 0.5% three times within six months. The stock market dumped over 30% despite the central bank’s intervention.

It’s the same story in 2007 and 2008, where the Fed introduced three aggressive rate reductions. The result? A massive stock market collapse of over 50%.

It appears that history is showing that emergency rate cuts are desperate measures. The Federal Reserve knows there’s a big crisis coming but its measure likely won’t stop the bleeding.

The stock market tanking in spite of the Fed’s emergency intervention is a signal that the risk of the coronavirus to the economy is bigger than anticipated. That statement appears to be true as the World Health Organization (WHO) released new figures regarding the mortality rate of the coronavirus.

On Tuesday, WHO officials said that the global death rate for the COVID-19 is actually 3.4%. This number is significantly higher than the previous estimate of 2.3%. The seasonal flu has a mortality rate of 1%.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press conference in Geneva, "globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died.

"WHO official Dr. Mike Ryan paints an ominous picture of how little we understand about the virus: "Here we have a disease for which we have no vaccine, no treatment; we don't fully understand transmission; we don't fully understand case mortality."

In the United States, there are now 122 confirmed cases and nine total deaths. Globally, the number of confirmed cases soared above 93,000.

Hedge fund manager Will Meade sums up the magnitude of the impact of the virus to the economy. "The last time the FED did an emergency 50 point rate cut was after Lehman collapse in 2008. Anyone tells you the coronavirus isn't a big deal is either stupid or naive."

Coronavirus Could Halve The U.S. Economic Growth This Year

As illustrated, an emergency rate cut often doesn’t bode well for the stock market. Will Meade echoes this view. The former Goldman Sachs analyst said that an emergency rate cut this big means that the economy would tank this year.

This sentiment is confirmed by a new Brookings Institution study. Brookings concluded that the mild coronavirus pandemic would wipe out around $420 billion from this year’s growth. In 2019, the current-dollar GDP surged by 4.1% or $848 billion. In other words, the least severe scenario effectively halves 2020’s economic expansion.

If worse comes to worst, Brookings projects that coronavirus will obliterate $1.78 trillion from GDP growth. According to the study, global GDP would contract by over $9 trillion in case the global pandemic leads to a “more serious outbreak similar to the Spanish flu.”

In either case, the economy and the stock market have a bleak outlook this year. It’s likely that no amount or quantity of rate cuts will stop the Dow Jones from plunging into a bear market.

Wall Street Journal reporters Jennifer Calfas and Mike Cherney are following the steady spread of coronavirus across the U.S. Yesterday saw the 11th fatality-- one in California and 10 inWashington. Leaders of both houses of Congress agreed to an $8 billion package to tackle the disease, including $3 billion to develop treatments. Two mentally deranged right-wing nuts-- Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Ken Buck (R-CO)-- were the only votes against it.

Soon after the agreement's overall framework was released, lawmakers released the 28-page bill. Two Democratic leadership sources told NBC that the House is expected to vote on the deal later in the day. It will need two-thirds of the House to pass it and leadership expects it to pass with bipartisan support.

The bill includes a provision that requires that funds are only used to fight the coronavirus and other infectious diseases as some Democrats feared that the Trump administration could raid the funding and use it for other unrelated purposes.

“This should not be about politics; this is about doing our job to protect the American people from a potential pandemic," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby said. "We worked together to craft an aggressive and comprehensive response that provides the resources the experts say they need to combat this crisis. I thank my colleagues for their cooperation and appreciate President Trump’s eagerness to sign this legislation and get the funding out the door without delay.”

The legislation would provide more than $2 billion to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for public health funding for prevention, preparedness and response.

It also would allocate more than $3 billion to a public health emergency fund and the National Institutes of Health for research and development of vaccines, treatment and testing of the coronavirus. The bill would also provide nearly $1.3 billion to help protect the health of Americans living abroad from the coronavirus.

A House Democratic aide said that the legislation would provide more than "$300 million to help ensure that, when a vaccine is developed, Americans can receive it regardless of their ability to pay."

"The legislation ensures that the federal government will only pay a fair and reasonable price for coronavirus vaccines and drugs and provides HHS the authority to ensure that they are affordable in the commercial market," the aide said.

I got an e-mail from the mayor of Los Angeles today-- back from his trip to Dallas to help Biden get elected, thereby destroying America. (Bernie led Biden in L.A. by about 11 points but maybe someone in Dallas gives a shit about what Eric Garcetti has to say.

If you've been following our coverage of the pandemic you already know that the official coronavirus numbers are wrong, which is no secret. And we're not just talking about China. The numbers are all wrong in the U.S. too. "The data are untrustworthy," wrote Alex Madrigal, "because the processes we used to get them were flawed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s testing procedures missed the bulk of the cases. They focused exclusively on travelers, rather than testing more broadly, because that seemed like the best way to catch cases entering the country.

This artificially low number means that for the past few weeks, we’ve seen massive state action abroad and only simmering unease domestically. While Chinese officials were enacting a world-historic containment effort-- putting more than 700 million people under some kind of movement restriction, quarantining tens of millions of people, and placing others under new kinds of surveillance-- and American public-health officials were staring at the writing on the wall that the disease was extremely likely to spread in the U.S., the public-health response was stuck in neutral. The case count in the U.S. was not increasing at all. Preparing for a sizable outbreak seemed absurd when there were fewer than 20 cases on American soil. Now we know that the disease was already spreading and that it was the U.S. response that was stalled.

Meanwhile, South Korean officials have been testing more than 10,000 people a day, driving up the country’s reported-case count. Same goes for Italy: high test rate, high number of cases. (Now some Italian politicians want to restrict testing.) In China, the official data say the country has more than 80,000 cases, but the real number might be far, far higher because of all the people who had mild(er) cases and were turned away from medical care, or never sought it in the first place. That may be cause for reassurance (though not everyone agrees), because the total number of cases is the denominator in the simple equation that yields a fatality rate: deaths divided by cases. More cases with the same number of deaths means that the disease is likely less deadly than the data show.

The other problem is, now that the U.S. appears to be ramping up testing, the number of cases will grow quickly. Public-health officials are currently cautioning people not to worry as that happens, but it will be hard to disambiguate what proportion of the ballooning number of cases is the result of more testing and what proportion is from the actual spread of the virus.

People trust data. Numbers seem real. Charts have charismatic power. People believe what can be quantified. But data do not always accurately reflect the state of the world. Or as one scholar put it in a book title: "Raw Data" Is an Oxymoron.

The reality gap between American numbers and American cases is wide. Regular citizens and decision makers cannot rely on only the numbers to make decisions. Sometimes quantification actually obscures as much as it reveals.

This is the letter the mayor's staff drafted for him to send out. Keep in mind that some the information is correct and some of the stuff they've written about the disease is absolutely wrong and not helpful (even if he wasn't a Biden supporter).

Here’s what you should know: COVID-19 symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath-- and may appear as few as two days or as long as 14 days after exposure. Person-to-person spread mainly occurs from contact with an infected person coughing or sneezing (similar to the flu). In rare cases, it may be possible that COVID-19 can be transmitted by touching an infected surface or object.

Here’s what the City is doing:

• We’ve declared a local state of emergency to access additional resources that will help our region prepare.
• We’ve activated our City Emergency Operations Center to a heightened level of vigilance.
• The City is working closely with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) and the County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to share updates, guidance, and information on COVID-19.
• All City Departments are reviewing and updating Continuity of Operations Plans to ensure that they can continue delivering essential services in the event of an emergency.
• The Port of Los Angeles and San Pedro Bay Complex are on heightened alert. The Coast Guard is assessing all inbound vessels to determine whether the vessel has visited a country impacted by COVID-19 within the last five ports of call. Vessel operators are required to report ill crewmembers and passengers within 15 days of arrival to any U.S. port.
• LAX is following the guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and L.A. County DPH-- including screening travelers with possible exposure and following best practices to keep travelers and employees safe. This includes installing more than 250 additional hand sanitizer stations and using virus and bacteria-killing disinfectants throughout the airport. We’re cleaning public areas and restrooms at least once every hour, and increasing deep cleaning-- focusing on high touch areas like handrails, escalators, elevator buttons, and restroom doors. We’re also adding signage with information on COVID-19 symptoms and how to reduce the spread of illness.

Here’s what you can do:

• Take precautions: If you are sick, stay home. Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. Cover your cough or sneeze. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces. Get a flu shot to prevent the flu, which has similar symptoms to COVID-19. If you have recently traveled in an area with COVID-19 infections and are showing symptoms, monitor your health and seek guidance from a medical professional. Currently, the CDC and DPH are not recommending personal face masks be used by people who do not have prolonged exposure to individuals identified as at risk.
• Plan ahead: Living in earthquake country, we know the importance of personal preparedness on any given day. Have extra food, water, medical supplies, and emergency kits in your homes and offices. Talk to your family, friends, and neighbors to develop emergency plans.

Is Eric Garcetti Putting Los Angeles At The Forefront Of The Battle To Tackle Climate Change?

Eric Garcetti isn't running for president next year. Whew! I'm totally relieved. I like Eric and I've known him for a long time. He's the guy who showed me how to use a credit card in a parking meter. But I didn't think running for president was a good idea. He hasn't created a compelling enough record as mayor of Los Angeles to run on. And, it appeared to be that he has been veering further and further towards the middle of the road ever since he started seriously working on running. I didn't like it. Everything starts to become about what voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will think.

This past week Eric was Eric again-- the Eric that should run for president some day. This was the note he sent Angelinos this week:

It's time for every single city in America to take on the fight against climate change.

Earlier this week in L.A., we stopped a plan to spend billions of dollars rebuilding three city-owned natural gas power plants along our coast, because I know we need to get to our goal of 100% renewable energy as fast as possible.

And it seems like folks agree that this should be our top priority: A couple weeks ago-- right after the new Congress was sworn in, and Democrats took over the majority in the House-- I sent you a survey asking what you'd like the new Congress to tackle.

The results were a strong cry for real action on climate change. And we cannot afford to wait on Washington. Every city in America must act.

It's refreshing to see this Congress start to take climate change more seriously, from weekly hearings on the effects it's having on real Americans to the Green New Deal. But talking isn't enough.

That's why I helped create Climate Mayors, a bipartisan group of mayors across the U.S. who, when Donald Trump said he was pulling us from the Paris climate agreement, pledged that their cities were in. Today, Climate Mayors counts 415 mayors representing 70 million Americans within its ranks. That's globally significant action from the bottom up, not the top down.

The Bloomberg piece that announced Garcetti's move with the 3 power plants was welcome and dramatic: California Puts Another Nail in Coffin for Fossil-Fuel Plants. The 3 plants, which represent 38% of the city's natural gas consumption were slated to be rebuilt and that plan had been approved earlier. Why? Well, the city would have had to have spent $15 billion on the upgrades to rebuild the 3 plants and Garcetti said he wants the city to move toward getting all of its power from renewable sources ASAP. "This is the beginning of the end of natural gas in Los Angeles. The climate crisis demands that we move more quickly to end dependence on fossil fuel, and that’s what today is all about."

The L.A. Times pointed out that "now the hard work starts: figuring out how to replace the three facilities without raising energy prices or increasing the risk of power outages. And another battle looms on the horizon, as Los Angeles moves forward with plans for a new gas facility in Utah to replace a coal-fired power plant that still generates much of the city’s electricity."

City officials and activists who have pushed Los Angeles to take more aggressive steps to tackle climate change hailed Garcetti’s decision to stop DWP from making life-extending investments at the Scattergood, Haynes and Harbor gas plants. At a news conference Tuesday, the mayor cast his move as part of a global struggle to rein in the carbon emissions that are heating the planet, and as a major step toward removing fossil fuels from the power mix of the nation’s second-largest city.

“We often wonder, what does history look like, what does it feel like? It feels like this, today,” Garcetti said. “A moment in which all of us as human beings are challenged to step up and to lead in a moment that will define our lives, and the lives of our children, and our children’s children.”

Natural gas accounted for 31% of the city’s power supply in 2017, with much of that generation coming from Scattergood, Haynes and Harbor. DWP managers had argued in recent months that those three facilities in particular are critical to keeping the lights on for the city’s 4 million residents, especially on hot summer days with the highest electricity demand and during outages elsewhere on the power grid.

Los Angeles is under state orders to shutter all 10 gas-fired generators at the three plants in the coming years because they use ocean water for cooling, which can harm marine life. DWP officials had said they weren’t sure clean technologies like batteries would be cheap or effective enough to replace the gas plants before the state’s deadlines, 2024 for Scattergood and 2029 for Harbor and Haynes.

On Tuesday, they sang a different tune.

“The question that staff has somehow heard for a number of years is, ‘Can we?’ And I don’t think ‘can we?’ is the right word. It’s ‘How can we?’” DWP General Manager David Wright said. “Some of the best managers and the best engineers, planners and operators will take this challenge and will make it work.”

Los Angeles isn’t alone in trying to eliminate fossil fuels: California lawmakers passed a bill last year requiring the state to get 100% of its electricity from climate-friendly sources by 2045. The main challenge is that the two cheapest and most popular sources of renewable energy, solar and wind power, are intermittent, generating electricity only when the sun shines or the wind blows.

That’s starting to change as lithium-ion batteries and other forms of energy storage get cheaper, making it possible to bank electricity from solar panels and wind turbines in increasingly large quantities. But some critics still question whether it’s possible to run an affordable, reliable power grid without fossil fuels anytime soon.

Kendal Asuncion, a public policy manager for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, pointed to the recommendations of a team of DWP consultants who had advised the utility to rebuild seven of the 10 ocean-cooled gas units. Asuncion said the city’s environmental goals must be “balanced with resiliency, responsibility and financial responsibility” to keep power flowing smoothly and electricity rates low.

“Businesses are concerned about these impacts to our bottom line, and we’re concerned that there was no ratepayer advocate report or analysis done on this,” Asuncion said at Tuesday’s board meeting.

It’s hard to predict whether battery costs will keep falling, or what other clean energy technologies and strategies will evolve over the next decade. But there’s a growing body of scientific literature suggesting that eliminating fossil fuels is doable. Just last month, researchers from Finland and Brazil released a study finding that powering the Americas with 100% renewable energy may actually reduce electricity costs.

As Los Angeles officials celebrated the transition away from natural gas on Tuesday, they mostly glossed over the fact that the city still gets much of its power from an even dirtier fossil fuel: coal. In 2017, 18% of L.A.’s electricity was generated at the Intermountain Power Plant, a coal-burning facility outside Delta, Utah.

That plant supplies energy to dozens of cities and power agencies in California and Utah, and is scheduled to be decommissioned by 2025. But the DWP, which buys nearly half the electricity generated at Intermountain, supports a plan backed by other Intermountain buyers to replace the facility with an 840-megawatt gas plant-- the same type of power plant Garcetti wants to retire here in the Los Angeles Basin.

Asked about DWP’s support for a new gas plant in Utah, Garcetti described it as “part of a plan to get off of coal.” But he acknowledged that any new investment in fossil fuels “doesn’t sit easy, I think, with any of us.”

“We have to make sure that there is sustainable power, and it’s way too early to be able to say there’s something where we can snap our fingers and have battery storage at that level,” Garcetti said. “It’s something that I continue to push this department to look at in any way that we can. Because that to me is not a long-term solution. I don’t want to see in 30 years from now that we have a natural gas plant, even if it’s in Utah.”

DWP officials have said they agreed to a gas plant at the Intermountain site in part to maintain access to the Southern Transmission System, a 500-mile power line corridor that brings electricity from Utah to Southern California. They see the transmission lines as a valuable pathway for importing low-cost clean energy from Utah alongside the gas-fired electricity. They’ve also said they plan to pay down the gas plant’s costs on an accelerated schedule, to make possible its early retirement.

But S. David Freeman, a former DWP general manager who now works with environmental groups to advocate for renewable energy, has criticized Garcetti for going along with the Utah gas plant-- even though the mayor helped downsize the project to 840 megawatts from the 1,200 megawatts previously supported by DWP.

“It’s global warming, for God’s sake. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Utah or if it’s in downtown L.A. as far as the climate’s concerned,” Freeman said. “I think a little sunlight needs to be shone on that sucker.”

With Obama Out In California Pushing Perez For DNC Chair, The State Party May Be Swinging Towards Ellison

Eric Bauman is the chairman of the L.A. County Democratic Party and the state Democratic Party's Vice Chairman. Late yesterday, he caused the California party go haywire by publicly requesting that Party Chair John Burton call a special meeting to consider a state party endorsement for DNC chairman. In the incredible well-crafted letter below, Bauman laid out all his reasons for backing Keith Ellison. This comes right on top of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti's ill-timed endorsement, just after dinner with Obama in Palm Springs, of the establishment pick: former Labor Secretary Tom Perez. Big misstep for Garcetti! With speculation about Garcetti running for governor going from a whisper to a scream, the fight over DNC chair can easily become a crucial intra-party issue for California Democrats. Bauman's letter:

Fellow Democrats,

I just got off the phone with Congressman Keith Ellison to let him know that I am proud to endorse him for Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Ellison is an extraordinary candidate to be the next Chair of the DNC, and I believe the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in require extraordinary measures.

That is why I call upon California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton to call a special one-day meeting so that we can consider, and potentially endorse, a candidate for Chair of the DNC.

We have an impressive array of candidates, each of whom bring needed strengths and perspectives as we rebuild the Democratic Party. I considered each candidate carefully, and have come to the conclusion that Congressman Keith Ellison is the right choice to lead us forward.

My decision became ever so clear as I watched the clock count down the last moments of the Obama Presidency and recognized the sorrow I felt that our country will no longer have the hope that he provided to remind us of the potential that we have as a nation, and as I regained a little of that hope yesterday as millions of us took to the streets in protest.

With this incoming era, it is not enough to be anti-Trump. It is not enough to point out the horrible policies of the racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, incoming Administration. At this time, we need a leader at the national level who can unite our Party behind a truly progressive agenda and maintain the enthusiasm and passion of newly mobilized activists across our country.

We are fortunate here in California to have a strong Democratic Party that is at the forefront of the fight for progressive policies. We have won every statewide race two cycles running, and even against last year's backdrop that was the Republican takeover across the country, California Democrats held every Congressional seat and even picked-up seats in our state legislature. But winning races is not the end goal-- these victories will enable California to continue to be a national leader on immigration, the environment, workers rights, criminal justice reform, supporting the middle-class, reducing poverty, ensuring fair taxation, and maintaining our commitment to the health and education of all of our people. The successes of the Democratic Party in California are a roadmap back to power for Democrats nationally.

And Congressman Keith Ellison understands this dynamic. That is why one of his first official trips as a candidate for Chair was to the CDP Executive Board Meeting in San Diego last November. Our General Session was delighted to hear him deliver a powerful and impressive speech, and I personally had the chance to sit down with him for over an hour one-on-one to discuss how to move our Party forward.

We discussed our backgrounds and our views on the challenges ahead. We discussed what kind of relationship he envisioned having with the State Parties across the country, and I impressed upon him my belief of the imperative need for a 50 State Strategy.

For those of you who have been following the race, you know that he doesn't just have a 50 State Strategy, he has a 3,143 county strategy!

Well, as someone who has worked in the trenches of the Democratic Party at the grassroots level as the Chair of a County Democratic Party for the last 16 years, and as a Democratic Club President for 7 years prior to that, I feel like that's almost reason enough to support him right there.

Representative Ellison shares my belief that the power and the passion of our Party lies in the hands of our activists and volunteers. Only the most successful DNC Chairs we have seen understand why we dedicate our lives to the fight and keep in mind who we're fighting for.

But there is one more reason I would like to share with you. Congressman Ellison is committed to making sure all of us have a place in the Democratic Party. He will be a Chair for all of us-- from veteran delegates first inspired by the presidential campaigns of John and Robert Kennedy to the energetic and enthusiastic new activists mobilized by the recent campaign of Bernie Sanders.

I must admit I had concerns about media reports that attempted to create controversy and division amongst us about Congressman Ellison, most notably on his support for Israel, Palestine and the two-state solution, and for past relationships from his youth.

But in my meeting with him and in follow-up calls over the last few weeks, he assured me in unequivocal terms that he supports the two-state solution, and has proven that he will be forceful and aggressive in pushing back against media distortions and attempts to create disunity within our Party. Right now what we need is to be united in the important work in front of us: resisting Trump and demanding a progressive way forward for the future.

At the conclusion of our meeting, he and I stood together and hugged, me as a stoutly observant Jewish man, and he as a deeply religious Muslim man-- agreeing that the path to peace in the Middle East requires Jews and Muslims to be able to live side-by-side in peace, with their respective sovereignty. We both understand that only a perspective that embraces and lifts up all that is good in our world, and rejects the anger and hate tearing us apart, is able to one day bring an end to the pain and suffering gripping the region.

I believe it's imperative that California Democrats unite to make our progressive voices heard-- and we must do so in a way that makes DNC members throughout the country take notice of our call to action.

I ask you to join me in my call to Chairman Burton to request a special one-day endorsement meeting, and I sincerely hope you will join me in supporting Congressman Keith Ellison for Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

The Paris Climate Change Deal Might Be The Start Of Something

There was a lot of excitement yesterday when the UN's climate deal document was released. My town's very environmentally-inclined mayor, Eric Garcetti, tweeted "Today's climate agreement vote is a hinge of history, when we stopped saying if and started moving to how. So glad LA is helping lead the way." And El Presidente made a speech about it-- the video above. Some excerpts:

Skeptics said these actions would kill jobs. Instead, we’ve seen the longest streak of private-sector job creation in our history. We’ve driven our economic output to all-time highs while driving our carbon pollution down to its lowest level in nearly two decades. And then, with our historic joint announcement with China last year, we showed it was possible to bridge the old divides between developed and developing nations that had stymied global progress for so long. That accomplishment encouraged dozens and dozens of other nations to set their own ambitious climate targets. And that was the foundation for success in Paris. Because no nation, not even one as powerful as ours, can solve this challenge alone. And no country, no matter how small, can sit on the sidelines. All of us had to solve it together.

Now, no agreement is perfect, including this one. Negotiations that involve nearly 200 nations are always challenging. Even if all the initial targets set in Paris are met, we’ll only be part of the way there when it comes to reducing carbon from the atmosphere. So we cannot be complacent because of today’s agreement. The problem is not solved because of this accord. But make no mistake, the Paris agreement establishes the enduring framework the world needs to solve the climate crisis. It creates the mechanism, the architecture, for us to continually tackle this problem in an effective way.

This agreement is ambitious, with every nation setting and committing to their own specific targets, even as we take into account differences among nations. We’ll have a strong system of transparency, including periodic reviews and independent assessments, to help hold every country accountable for meeting its commitments. As technology advances, this agreement allows progress to pave the way for even more ambitious targets over time. And we have secured a broader commitment to support the most vulnerable countries as they pursue cleaner economic growth.

In short, this agreement will mean less of the carbon pollution that threatens our planet, and more of the jobs and economic growth driven by low-carbon investment. Full implementation of this agreement will help delay or avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change, and will pave the way for even more progress, in successive stages, over the coming years.

Moreover, this agreement sends a powerful signal that the world is firmly committed to a low-carbon future. And that has the potential to unleash investment and innovation in clean energy at a scale we have never seen before. The targets we’ve set are bold. And by empowering businesses, scientists, engineers, workers, and the private sector-- investors-- to work together, this agreement represents the best chance we’ve had to save the one planet that we’ve got.

So I believe this moment can be a turning point for the world. We’ve shown that the world has both the will and the ability to take on this challenge. It won’t be easy. Progress won’t always come quick.  We cannot be complacent. While our generation will see some of the benefits of building a clean energy economy-- jobs created and money saved-- we may not live to see the full realization of our achievement. But that’s okay. What matters is that today we can be more confident that this planet is going to be in better shape for the next generation. And that’s what I care about. I imagine taking my grandkids, if I’m lucky enough to have some, to the park someday, and holding their hands, and hearing their laughter, and watching a quiet sunset, all the while knowing that our work today prevented an alternate future that could have been grim; that our work, here and now, gave future generations cleaner air, and cleaner water, and a more sustainable planet. And what could be more important than that?

Good question. I turned to Bill McKibben to find out and he pointed right to a paragraph in the preamble to the agreement: "Emphasizing with serious concern the urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C …" And then explains what it means and why it's the hinge, speaking hinges, on whether this will be a successul endeavor by mankind or not (despite the assholes like Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who is on the payroll of Big Oil to the tune of $1,825,677, to sabotage the agreement).

What it says is: The world is a doughy fellow who has promised to drop three suit sizes in time for his wedding, which is now only a month away. The world is an anxious student who has to ace the next morning’s test to pass the course but hasn’t yet started to study. The world has promised his kids a great raft of presents under the tree, but now it’s suddenly Christmas Eve and the shops have started closing.

The “significant gap” is the crucial thing. In the agreement, the world promises to hold the rise in the planet’s temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius. Heck, it promises to aim for 1.5 degrees, which is extraordinary. It’s what actually needs to be done; if we succeeded, it might just head off complete calamity. (We’re now at 1 degree above average pre-industrial temperatures, and considering what that’s already done in terms of melt, flood, and drought, 1.5 C will still be trouble, but maybe manageable trouble.)

But once you get past the promises part, the actual plans submitted by various governments commit the world to a temperature rise of 3.5 degrees, which is more or less the same as hell. It’s a broken planet. This is the difference between hoping and doing-- a common enough part of the human condition. I kind of hoped I wouldn’t buy the pain au chocolat at the boulangerie down the street this morning. I had good ambitions. But, you know.

So if you want to be cynical about the Paris agreement, there’s plenty of reason.

But if you want to be hopeful, here’s the thing: The world’s governments have now announced their intentions. And so the rest of us can hold them to those promises, or at least try. What, you want to build a pipeline? I thought you were going to go for 1.5 degrees. You want to frack? Are you fracking kidding me? You said you were going for 2 degrees at the absolute worst.

This is a little like that moment when Barack Obama, upon winning the Democratic nomination in 2008, said that his administration would mark the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow.” He soon forgot about it, but the rest of us didn’t, and those words appeared on a thousand placards in the course of the fight over Keystone. Which we won.

Now every world leader has said something similar. And even if we harbor suspicions that they didn’t quite mean those words, we will use them again and again. We’ll be the nagging parent/teacher/spouse. We’ll assume they really want action. And we’ll demand they provide it.

Game on.

Plenty more specifics of the agreement can be found here but what can we do as American citizens to make this a meaningful moment in the history of mankind? I'm not going to urge you to defeat every Republican for every office; I'm sure you wouldn't be reading DWT if you didn't already believe that. Instead, let's look at the Democrats or putative Democrats in the House who have been on the wrong side of history and let's work to replace them with progressives. Democrats in the House with the worst records on Climate Change, records that are virtual death sentences for the planet belong to this dozen conservatives, all of whom should be replaced (the dollar amount is what they've taken from Big Oil and Gas since being elected to Congress):

• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL)- $32,950
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- $87,200
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- $3,500
• Donald Norcross (NJ)- $8,000
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- $458,577
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- $353,699
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)- $84,875
• Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL)- $4,000
• Gene Green (TX)- $654,613
• Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ)- $20,250
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL)- $34,550
• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)- $2,000

Los Angeles-- A Great City Plan For Going Into The Future

I met Eric Garcetti at the home of a mutual friend years and years ago. He was running for City Council and he was happy to talk with me about the issues facing Los Angeles. But he didn't talk about the issues everybody else was talking about. Garcetti, the son of former L.A. District Attorney Gil Garcetti, studied urban planning at Columbia University and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. I remember being more impressed by his urban studies education and his vision for L.A. than I was with the specifics of standard politics.

Eric was a champion of environmental legislation on the City Council and helped found the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, like the 2009 water conservation ordinance he authored that requires all new construction and renovation projects to be equipped with high-efficiency water devices with the goal of conserving a billion gallons of water a year. If you watched the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, you saw Eric expounding the virtues of electric cars. He may not be the kind of socialist-leaning politician I usually get enthusiastic about, but he's been the best mayor L.A. has had in my decades here. He was the strong hand behind L.A.'s new City Plan.

On Wednesday, L.A. mayor Eric Garcetti released an ambitious plan that puts environmental, economic, and equality issues front and center in helping determine the trajectory of the city, which plans to add another half-million residents by 2035. The plan comes at a pivotal moment for the state and the city, as a four-year drought prepares to settle in for the summer months. Governor Jerry Brown just announced statewide water restrictions for the first time and the state just had its hottest 12-month stretch on record.

“Our first ever sustainability plan details actions we must take in the coming months and years to secure a future for L.A. that is environmentally healthy, economically prosperous and equitable in opportunity for us all,” Mayor Garcetti said. “My back to basics approach is about making sure our city has the strong foundation it needs to soar to new heights.”

A few of the plan’s highlights include: becoming “the first big city in the nation to achieve zero waste” by 2025, fully divesting from coal-powered electricity by 2025, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, having zero smog days by 2025, and making it so that 50 percent of all trips taken by city residents are by bike, foot, or public transportation by 2035. The plan also makes commitments to reduce energy use in all buildings by 30 percent by 2035.

...The full plan spans 108 pages, covering everything from reducing potable water use by 10 percent in city parks to ensuring that 50 percent of the city’s light-duty vehicle purchases are electric vehicles by 2025. With the drought in full swing and no reason to believe that prayers for rain will bring lasting results, the city is hoping to reduce overall municipal water use by 25 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030.

L.A. has some of the highest levels of income inequality in the country, and the plan attempts to combine the fight against climate change with the one against poverty. By 2017, the city will begin “constructing 17,000 new units of housing within 1,500 feet of transit.” There are also targets to reduce the number of rent-burdened households, fight asthma, limit food deserts, and distribute cap-and-trade funds.

“This plan puts L.A. at the very heart of sustainability efforts in cities across the country,” said Parfrey. “The environmental community wants it to be a great success.”

Why Would You Vote For Anyone Opposed To Increasing The Minimum Wage?

No doubt Labor Day is about barbecuing for many people… or an extra day off from work that can be spent with friends and family or in blissful solitude. But this morning, in his weekly address, Presdient Obama chose to discuss the minimum wage, particularly since Mitch McConnell had just prostrated himself before the Koch brothers and some equally heinous billionaires and viewed he would never allow an increase in the minimum wage to even come up for a vote if he wins reelection. It probably angered Peter King again, but the president decided to talk about economic issues that face American families, rather than a beheading in Iraq. "We set aside Labor Day to honor the working men and women of America," he said. And this Labor Day, we’ve got more to celebrate. Over the past 53 months, our businesses have added nearly 10 million new jobs. Last month, for the first time since 1997, we created more than 200,000 jobs for six straight months. And for the first time in over a decade, business leaders worldwide have declared, two years running, that the number one place to invest isn’t China-- it’s America." Republicans don't want to hear this. Any good news for America makes their blood boil and their collective head explode. "[T]here are reasons to be optimistic about where we’re headed," the president continued, happy to infuriate them. "And the decisions we make now will determine whether or not we accelerate this progress-- whether economic gains flow to a few at the top, or whether a growing economy fuels rising incomes and a thriving middle class."

Think about it this Labor Day. The things we often take for granted-- Social Security and Medicare, workplace safety laws and the right to organize for better pay and benefits, even weekends-- we didn’t always have these things. Workers and the unions who get their back had to fight for them. And those fights built a stronger middle class.

To build a stronger middle class in today’s changing economy, we’ve got to keep fighting. We’ve got to fight for the right to affordable health insurance for everybody. The right to fair pay, family leave, and workplace flexibility. The right to a fair living wage.

Let me focus on that last one for a minute. In America, no one who works full-time should ever have to raise a family in poverty. A hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. And raising the minimum wage would be one of the best ways to give a boost to working families. It would help around 28 million Americans from all walks of life pay the bills, provide for their kids, and spend that money at local businesses. And that grows the economy for everyone.

The bottom line is, America deserves a raise. But until we’ve got a Congress that cares about raising working folks’ wages, it’s up to the rest of us to make it happen. And in the year and a half since I first asked Congress to raise the minimum wage, Americans of all walks of life are doing just that.

Thirteen states and D.C. have done their part by raising their minimum wages. Four more states have minimum wage initiatives on the ballot this November. And the states where the minimum wage has gone up this year have experienced higher job growth than the states that haven’t.

Conservatives are now desperately trying to "compromise" on the minimum wage. The two conservative EMILY's List candidates in Hawaii, Colleen Hanabusa, a New Dem, and Donna Mercado Kim, a right-wing religious fanatic, were both defeated in Democratic primaries in part because of their refusal to get behind the already-too-low $10.10 minimum wage proposal. Hanabusa plotted with Maine Republican Susan Collins to cut back the $10.10 to as low as they could get away with. And Kim voted against legislation that passed the Hawaii Senate that did raise the minimum wage. Actual progressives understand why $10.10 is too low and that it's really just a baseline from which to go up-- not down. Monday Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is expected to announce his plan to raise the Los Angeles minimum wage to $13.25 in increments over three years. His proposal includes increases pegged to inflation so that workers don't lose buying power as prices of necessities rise.

Do Famous People Sway Voters?

The big endorsement news in L.A. yesterday was when Mayor Eric Garcetti-- or as many people around here refer to him, future POTUS Eric Garcetti-- backed Ted Lieu for Congress in the CA-33 seat Henry Waxman is giving up. "Tuesday's election is extremely important for the future of our region," said Mayor Garcetti. That's why I am endorsing Ted Lieu for Congress. Ted is not only the most qualified candidate, but the type of person we need in Washington-- intelligent, ethical and relentless as a representative for our community. He has shown tremendous leadership on important issues of our time including climate change, healthcare and protecting victims of domestic violence. I am confident that Ted Lieu is the best candidate to strengthen the middle class, create more jobs and help workers save for retirement."

They day before, LL Cool J endorsed one of the vanity candidates in the race. Up top, you see the final version of the Blue America ad we did for Marianne Williamson-- we did a duel endorsement for her and Ted.

The ad has been quite an experience. It brought back the wonderful days I had working with creative geniuses like Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Chaka Khan, Lou Reed, Fleetwood Mac, Cher, Rickie Lee Jones, all artists acknowledged as "brilliant but." The "but" was that they were supposedly "difficult." I learned early on that tyne only artists worth anything were the difficult ones-- the perfectionists who aren't fooling around but what to get it right and expect everyone around them to get it right too. That's what making this ad was like on ever single level. I spent a lot of time on the phone today with Frances Fisher learning how a soft black fade is very different from a hard black fade and why that's important. She was very patient with me. I'm grateful.

Frances is probably best known for her role in Titantic and on ABC’s Resurrectiontook my breath away with her consummate professionalism and dedication. She worked with Marcia Cross-- probably best known for her role on Desperate Housewives-- and a tight group of local actresses and activists to create a Public Service Announcement titled I WOKE UP in support of Marianne Williamson’s campaign for Congress, although independent of her campaign and sponsored by the Blue America PAC I.E. Committee. This, in part, is the message we sent to the media about the ad:

Other noteworthy actresses involved in the PSA include Francesca Eastwood (Oh! You Pretty Things, Jersey Boys), Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand And Fog), Catherine Roberts, Debbon Ayer, Molly Weber, Nancy Moonves, Amanda Perez, Jody Carter, and Bonnie Bower. Also appearing in the ad is the Publisher of the L.A. Progressive, Sharon Kyle, along with Digital Marketing Consultant and Speaker, Nori Wolfson. Moby, a multiple-Grammy Award nominated musician and BMI Film & TV Award winner, donated the music that plays throughout the piece. The PSA will be airing online starting today via numerous web sites including the L.A, Times, and it will air on cable TV starting Friday morning on networks that include MSNBC, CNN, TBS, TNT, Comedy Central, USA, The Food Channel, and Bravo.

“We collectively felt compelled to stand up and do something to support Marianne,” says Roger Wolfson, who wrote and directed the PSA. Wolfson, a TV writer (The Closer, Saving Grace) who has been staff to Senators Kerry, Wellstone, and Kennedy, added “I’ve never seen any project come together as easily and quickly as this one.”

By all accounts, this was a collaborative effort. Marcia Cross, who has won two SAG Awards, one Satellite Award, and who has also been nominated a combined 13 times for the Primetime Emmys, Golden Globes, Prism Awards, and the Satellite and Television Critics Association Awards, came up with the slogan “I Woke Up.” She additionally contributed much of the dialogue. Explains Cross: “Marianne represents the quality of leadership we need in America, and we hope this piece can help create awareness for her and inspire action to vote for Marianne. She has changed so many lives, including mine. We felt this ad was the least we could to do support this incredible candidacy.”

The ad was conceived Friday night and shot on Monday-- Memorial Day. Frances Fisher, who has starred in Academy Award winning films like Unforgiven, was willing to serve as Assistant Director, Craft Services, and Final Touches for this particular set. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do to raise awareness of this incredibly vital campaign. Finally, we don’t have to go to the polls to choose between different flavors of vanilla. Marianne provides a choice that every woman should consider.”

The film crew included Director of Photography Steven Miles, Sound Work by Rick Brush, and it was edited by Writer/Director Stephen Lentini. The set for this film took place at the West Hollywood showroom of activist Jamie Adler, who appears in the ad next to her daughter, Ruby. Director John Wynn also contributed guidance and support. Even Mark Wolf, who served as a Filmmaker and Editor at The White House for President Obama, showed up as crew to take stills and work the teleprompter.

“The entire process was inspirational,” said Wolf. “Everything we needed seemed to appear, right on schedule,” added Adler. “We were fighting to give each other lines,” said Aghdashloo, an Academy Award-Nominated Actress who has won the Primetime Emmy, Independent Spirit Award, and the LA and NY Film Critics Awards.

On a personal note, Adler pointed out: “I have never been so proud of my daughter, who was as committed to the quality of this ad as anyone in the room.” Ruby Adler (9) added: “When I grow up, I’m voting for Marianne.”

Another mother-daughter combination the PSA captures is that of Fisher and Francesca Eastwood, whose passion for Williamson is well captured onscreen, when she explains: “I’m showing up at the polls, because I woke up.”

The issues the PSA touches on includes the misplaced priorities of spending more on candidates versus pre-natal care, Veterans, the need to reduce recidivism, and providing more teachers in schools to support and better educate our children.

Straight across the country in Maine, there was also a spectacular pop-culture endorsement today. One of America's greatest living authors, Stephen King did an OpEd in the Bangor Daily News explaining why he's supporting Shenna Bellows for the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Susan Collins: For This Lifetime Mainer, Bellows Is The Clear Choice.

It’s been almost 20 years since Maine had a Democratic representative in the U.S. Senate (George Mitchell, if you’re keeping track). The smart money says we won’t elect a Democrat this year, either, but this is a case where I hope the smart money is wrong.

No disrespect to Sen. Susan Collins, and no mudslinging, either; there’s precious little mud to sling. She’s been a purple senator in an increasingly purple state, where we have a conservative governor in Paul LePage and an independent (but centrist) senator in Angus King. But when I get those emails from the Collins campaign calling her “our Senator,” I have to disagree.

Sen. Susan Collins is considered a moderate who compromises a lot. Sounds good, but when it comes down to casting votes that serve Mainers, she always seems to end up with her Republican colleagues, led by Mitch McConnell-- the hardline block that shut down the government last year and has since neglected many urgent issues (including better care for our veterans) in a near maniacal effort to repeal an Affordable Care Act that is already working.

Moderation is fine, but only up to a point. It’s not helpful to Mainers when Collins continues to vote on the wrong side of policies that matter most.

Collins supports the Patriot Act, and has repeatedly voted for its renewal. She has repeatedly voted to authorize (and legalize) NSA spying. Shenna Bellows advocates repeal of the Patriot Act, and so do I. Obviously we need to keep an eye out for terrorists on American soil, but in the age of drones and mega-surveillance, it’s way past time to restructure this thing. And although Collins claims the NSA spying program is fair, it looks to me too much like a doorway to that world George Orwell wrote about in 1984.

Bellows supports raising the minimum wage. Collins opposes it, which makes me roll my eyes in exasperation. A $10.10 per hour wage in an America where gasoline costs $3.65 a gallon-- and where a great many Maine workers have to travel long distances to their place of employment-- seems fair to me. The idea that 10 bucks an hour will flatten the economy is basically an idea promulgated by rich greedheads who don’t want to pony up what’s fair to hard workers who are struggling to make ends meet.

Collins supports the Keystone Pipeline. This just makes me sigh, but not because of the pipeline per se. It’s where it comes from. This is tar sands oil, and according to the National Wildlife Federation, it’s “one of the dirtiest, costliest, and most destructive fuels in the world.” It lays waste to fragile ecosystems, emits more of the pollutants associated with global warming when burned, and creates lake-sized reservoirs of toxic waste. It’s a lethally short-sighted quick fix, and the supporters of the Keystone are its enablers.

Bellows believes that genetically modified foods (known as GMOs, and called “Frankenfoods” in my house, but that’s just us) should be labeled. In 2013, Collins voted against a law that would have mandated labeling these modified products, more or less turning her back on all the organic farmers here in Maine who were in favor.

I could go on. Collins voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act, mandating that women get equal pay for equal work (and you thought Lincoln freed the slaves). She voted for the Iraq war, and OMG, what a horrible idea that was. Her personal views on same-sex marriage are unclear to me, while Bellows is frank and up-front on the subject, stating her belief that gay folks should have the same rights under the law as straight folks (and the same responsibilities, of course).

Collins has shown leadership, at least within her own party, which hasn’t always been easy. She shows up, she does the job, she interacts with her constituents. All good. For this lifetime Mainer, however, she’s on the wrong side of too many issues to deserve re-election. I’m voting for Bellows. No smart money there, just smart ideas, idealism and youthful energy.

Solar Energy In L.A.-- And Japan

Monday night I was at the Hammer Museum for a screening of Shaun Kadlec's and Deb Tullmann's fantastic new film, Born This Way, a documentary on the gay and lesbian underground in Cameroon. Afterwards I ran into Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti. Eric's an old friend and one of the smartest politicians I've ever met. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and he studied Urban Planning at Columbia. I doubt L.A. has ever elected anyone as qualified to be mayor in its entire history. I hadn't talked to Eric since he beat out the DWP shill he ran against in the runoff. I've been dying to talk with him about how the DWP systematically rips off solar energy users in L.A.-- but I restrained myself... for now.

The DWP is going to be one of many tough problems Eric is going to face as mayor. I know he already knows what crooks they are and I figured I don't have anything substantive add anyway. My home solar system was designed to eliminate my electric bill and it did but after nearly a year it started creeping back up again and is now at around 50% of it was before I covered my roof in solar panels, I can never get a straight answer out of the DWP crooks. Lucky for Cambridge, Massachusetts they have MIT on hand to make sure ratepayers there don't get the DWP treatment. They've developed a new tool to assess a city's solar power potential. “In this project we developed a new simulation-based technique to reliably predict the annual electricity yield from an arbitrarily oriented and obstructed photovoltaic (PV) array located anywhere on the planet.”

SA+P researchers have developed a new interactive map to show a city’s property owners how much electricity can be produced on their rooftops from solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, how the financial investment will pay off and how much pollution will be reduced.

The new tool shows that if photovoltaic panels were installed on all good and excellent locations in MIT’s hometown of Cambridge, the city could generate about a third of its electricity needs via PV for about $2.8 billion. The technology has been found to predict electricity yield to within 4 – 10% of actual measured results.

So far the biggest solar power generation stars have been Germany and China. But now Japan, transitioning away from nuclear, has started making a dent-- a big one. Before Fukushima only 1% of Japan's energy needs came from solar. By next year Japan will be the world's second largest solar market after China.

According to a report by energy analyst IHS on Japan's energy mix, Japan's solar installations jumped by "a stunning 270% (in gigawatts) in the first quarter of 2013." That means by the end of 2013 there will be enough new solar panels equal to the capacity of seven nuclear reactors. Such massive growth will allow Japan to surpass Germany and become the world's largest photovoltaics (PV) market in terms of revenue this year.

"Japan is forecast to install $20 billion worth of PV systems in 2013, up 82% from $11 billion in 2012," IHS said. "In contrast, the global market is set for tepid 4% growth. The strong revenue performance for Japan this year is partly driven by the high solar prices in the country." Germany still leads with the total number of units and capacity, however, with its 32,192 megawatts. Japan is now closer to the U.S.'s 8,069 megawatts at 7,429 megawatts, according to London-based BNEF.

Solar energy in Japan has come to dominate thanks to government incentives now offered to the producers of renewables and rules which require public power utilities to buy alternative power at above-market rates. A deal forged by the last government desperate to wean Japan from its addiction to oil and nuclear power led to the implementation of a very generous feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable power generators.

Starting at 42 yen per kilowatt hour last July and now reduced in April to 37.8 yen (39 cents) the FIT is more than twice those of Chinese and German offerings.

...The provenance of the hardware has also seen a sea change with domestic panels now outselling cheap imports. Japan has a strong solar panel manufacturing industry and companies like Sharp, Kyocera, Sanyo, and Mitsubishi Electric would benefit from the new energy polices and emphasis on solar power, according to IHS.

Those same failing companies are now banking on a technological edge to push the quality up of made-in-Japan solar panels while keeping prices down. Doing so could make solar one the few bright points of the Japanese electronics industry. Sharp recently unveiled new solar panels that it claims not only use just 1% of the expensive silicon used in conventional models but are thin enough and clear enough to replace windows.

Others are focusing on efficiency. To make solar electricity affordable on a large scale, researchers have long been trying to develop a low-cost solar cell, which is both highly efficient and easy to manufacture with high output-- silicon-based solar cells typically have an efficiency of around 21% for converting sunlight into electricity.

According to Panasonic its prototype solar cell has achieved the world's highest conversion efficiency at 24.7%, verified by tests performed at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

"How long the boom in solar can last in Japan is hard to tell, but as land runs out, there will be slowdown," says Hoshi. "Of course there are still the rooftops to exploit as mobile carrier Softbank is doing. It's renting rooftops for solar-- a very smart and interesting business model. Perhaps, unlike previous attempts to deregulate Japan's electric utility industry, this should be a success."

Meanwhile, The U.S. generated 730 million kilowatt hours of solar electricity in the first two months of 2013-- so not the sunniest months anywhere-- 227% more than the same period in 2012, according to new EIA data. That's already 10% of the total amount generated for all of 2012.