Pete at Berkeley panel on aftermath of 9/11

Pete held forth yesterday as part of a panel of journalists, historians, legal scholars and public servants at a forum at U.C. Berkeley called, "National Security, the War on Terror, and the Constitution".

"Young people don't seem to care enough to vote," said panelist Pete McCloskey, a former U.S. representative. "Will there be a counterforce for Congress to exercise checks and balances on the president if no one votes?"

Read more in the Daily Californian...

Pete's supporting Charlie Brown against John Doolittle

Pete has endorsed Lt. Col. Charlie Brown, a Democrat who is challenging John Doolittle for the U.S. House seat in District 4 (Roseville area of California). Story is here...

Pete at "Stop Pombo" Rally

Pete will be in Stockton this Friday (Aug 25) for a rally to highlight Richard Pombo's inadequacies (this could be a week-long event), organized by the Tri-Valley Democrats. Here are the details:

Join fellow anti-Pombo Activist for some Street Theatre and Media Grabbing Activities near the fundraiser. DETAILS We invite you to join us with signs, costumes and entertainment. Bring the message to the media that we have to get rid of Pombo. To do that we have to be news worthy and entertaining. Here are some reasons to get rid of Pombo and some food for thought:

+ Democracy Not Empire- Pombo is in lockstep with Bush, they and the rest of the neo-cons want to colonize, corporatize, privatize, enslave and plunder the planet, they must be stopped. Taking back the house and investigating these criminals is the first step.

+ Bush's Environment Hitman - Pombo is the point man on rolling back Environmental Protection laws. Drilling off shore & in ANWR. Privatizing public lands and selling our national parks. Gutting the Endangered Species Act.

+ Corporate Front Man - When corporations need a congressman to do their bidding, they can rely on Pombo. Chevron did when they under bid the Chinese for Unocal.

+ Misuse of taxpayer funds - RV tour of national parks- Flyers touting Bush to Wyoming snowmobilers before the 2004 election paid for with tax dollars - Giving his staff weeks off with pay to run his campaign.

+ Asking FEMA not to publish a report on the safety of the delta levees, to protect his developer supporters, and to hide the danger from home owners and potential home buyers.

+ While supporting Bush's war, he voted to shortchange soldiers and their families. He was against extending regular military medical benefits to the families of National Guard serving in combat. He opposed prosthesis research that would benefit those injured in combat.

+ He skirted investigation by the house ethics committee because of the Republican majority.

Participants are encouraged to contact the media and invite them. Send them pictures of you in your costume. Bring your digital camera and email photos to the media for publication. Be ready with a press blurb - 27 words, 9 seconds, 3 ideas just enough to get you on the evening news. Here is a list of local media.

Costume ideas:
+ Endangered species - condor, polar bear, fish
+ Abramoff with a suitcase full of money
+ Snorkel and fins - levee danger
+ Surfers protest probable oil spills - bring your surf board
+ Caught Red Handed Foam Rubber Hands & Signs will be provided see photos

Pete's response in the Tracy Press

From the Tracy Press, 08/12/06

Holocaust did occur; I toured camp

Pete McCloskey

I am responding to the libelous letter to the editor by Nicholas Villagomez, alleging that I am a Holocaust denier and an anti-Semite. It was printed in Wednesday’s Tracy Press.

I am neither, as a whole number of reputable Jewish leaders and a number of former Jewish members of Congress will attest.

That the Holocaust occurred is undeniable. I have personally visited one of the Nazi death camps, perused the official records of the U.S. Army units that liberated several others and talked with a number of Holocaust survivors, both Jewish and Polish.

It is not anti-Semitic to challenge the several actions of Israel, which I have done since Israel first used cluster bombs in Southern Lebanon in the late 1970s in violation of their agreement with the United States when we furnished them with those lethal weapons.

It is not anti-Semitic to urge that Israel abide by the two-state solution set forth in U.N. Resolution 242 and to withdraw its settlers from the West Bank and Gaza, a policy urged by every U.S. president since Lyndon Johnson.

Our troubles in the Middle East would be far less had we not vetoed nearly every U.N. resolution critical of Israel in recent years, and had we continued to act as an even-handed broker for a fair peace between Israelis and the Palestinians, an effort continued by every president from Jimmy Carter through Bill Clinton.

My wife and I have contributed campaign funds to two members of the Israeli Knesset who had the courage to back the peace efforts of Yizhak Rabin and oppose the military vengeance of Ariel Sharon, and before him, Menachim Begin. Inasmuch as Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we would materially damage the position of our enemies if we demanded that Israel dispose of its arsenal of between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads as a ?condition of our demand that Iran abandon its efforts to achieve a nuclear capacity.

• Former Congressman Pete McCloskey resides in Rumsey. He unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, in the 11th Congressional District’s June primary. McCloskey has since endorsed Pombo’s foe in November, Democrat Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton.

Corrupted GOP needs to lose the House, for now

Here's the text of Pete's special commentary for the Sacramento Bee:

As a lifelong Republican, I have found it difficult to conclude that the nation will benefit by transferring control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats in November. However, I see no other way to put the country back on a reasonable course.

I regret that we Republicans have lost, as Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said recently, the moral right to lead.

Like those in any party too long in power, the Republican House leaders have been corrupted by that power and the money it attracts. When I served in Congress more than 20 years ago, the Democrats had been in control too long and were similarly corrupted. I saw a large number of Democratic members indicted, including several chairmen of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee on which I served for 14 years.

Twelve years ago, then-Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was able to return the Republicans to power under his "Contract With America," promising to restore high ethics standards. It was high time.
In a single decade, however, the Republican leadership has created a "Congressional/Lobbying Complex" that might be as dangerous as the "Military/Industrial Complex" President Eisenhower warned us about in 1961.

Money from rich, powerful corporations and their lobbyists has become the No. 1 Republican priority. Too often votes and/or earmarks have followed the money, with horrendous budget deficits and bad legislation the result.

The latest chapter in corruption came to light in 2004, when Majority Leader Tom DeLay was admonished three times for abuse of power by the bipartisan House ethics committee. Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, with the concurrence of the House leadership that includes Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, responded swiftly. The speaker removed Joel Hefley, the Republican chair of the ethics committee, and two other Republican members, replacing them with DeLay loyalists. The ethics rules were changed so that neither DeLay nor anyone else could be investigated without bipartisan consent. (The rule had been that deadlock along party lines triggered an automatic committee investigation.) The ethics committee was effectively emasculated and has remained so.

Even after former California Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham went to jail for accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors, the House leadership refused to establish an independent ethics monitoring agency.

Then there is the Jack Abramoff scandal, described as perhaps the worst scandal in congressional history. It centers on Abramoff's two primary clients, Indian tribes desiring to gain or protect lucrative casino gambling operations, and the government and clothing manufacturers of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory of islands west of Hawaii.

Both Doolittle and Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, have been involved in Abramoff's efforts for his clients. Starting in the mid-1990s, Abramoff funded lavish trips to the Marianas for congressmen and their staffs. He focused efforts on the House Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Marianas and which Pombo began chairing in 2003. (DeLay helped Pombo jump over senior members to assume the chairmanship.)

Both DeLay and Doolittle have praised the great free enterprise success in the Mariana Islands, although disclosures as early as 1998 pointed to working conditions that pushed female workers into prostitution and forced abortions. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Pombo has refused requests by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, and others to investigate Abramoff's lobbying activities for the Marianas.

Abramoff and two former congressional staff members who went to work for him have pleaded guilty to attempted bribery of members of Congress. Last summer, a former staff assistant to Doolittle, Kevin Ring, claimed his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on tribal lobbying rather than answer questions about his relationship to Abramoff.

Pombo and Doolittle rank as two of the highest recipients of money from Abramoff and his associates among California's members of Congress, with more than $40,000 each. Pombo has contributed thousands of dollars to the indicted DeLay's legal defense fund. Both Pombo and Doolittle have enriched their wives with thousands of dollars from campaign funds. Both have intervened to protect Charles Hurwitz, known in California for his company's clear-cutting of old-growth redwoods, from a federal inquiry into the collapse of a savings and loan.

As Shays commented, Republicans have lost the moral authority to lead the House. Such men should not be left in power in Congress.

There is another reason to set aside party loyalty this year. Since 2001, the House has abdicated its constitutional power and duty to exercise legislative oversight over the executive branch. Congress should not tacitly accept, without specific response, presidential signing statements that oppose the clear language of statutes.

The country works best when Congress acts as the independent branch of government specifically defined in the Constitution.

For these reasons, I reluctantly conclude that the Democrats should be returned to power, at least temporarily. Democrats should be challenged to clean up the ethical mess that has brought the House to such low esteem in the public view. They should restore the legislative oversight process. If they fail to do these things, we should turn them out as well.

East Bay Express asks, "Who's left?"

From Will Harper at the East Bay Express:

It's a shame Pete McCloskey didn't switch parties and run as a Democrat against Republican Richard Pombo of Tracy, the congressman in the cowboy hat who wants to sell off national parks, open up the coasts to offshore oil drillers, and gut the Endangered Species Act. The Democrats would have a much better chance of beating the powerful Pombo and taking back the House if they'd enlisted McCloskey — a lifelong Republican. But he's not just a regular Republican. McCloskey, who co-wrote the Endangered Species Act as a congressman in the early '70s, is himself something of an endangered species: the liberal Republican.

Yes, there is such a thing. At least there used to be. Shoot, by today's political standards, Richard Nixon's domestic policy would qualify him as a hippie tree-hugger — albeit one with a paranoid, authoritarian vibe. Don't forget, Tricky Dick created the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air Act. McCloskey, cochair of the first Earth Day, was to the left of Nixon — which would put him to the left of many of today's leading Democrats. The point is, with his liberal ethos and Republican cred, the 78-year-old McCloskey would have significant crossover appeal in a general election against Pombo in the Republican-leaning District 11, which stretches from the Central Valley to East Bay suburbs like Pleasanton and Danville.

Instead, McCloskey chose to take on Pombo in the GOP primary. He got clobbered, of course, but he still captured 31 percent of the vote — suggesting that maybe even people in Pombo's own party aren't so pleased with their man. Last week, McCloskey endorsed Pombo's Democratic opponent, wind-energy consultant Jerry McNerney. The real surprise, at least to Feeder, was that McCloskey comes off more like a lefty than McNerney, who was recently snubbed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for allegedly being too liberal for the district.

When a reporter asked McNerney if he supports Fremont Congressman Pete Stark's recently introduced universal health-care bill, the Democratic candidate cautiously stated that he hadn't had a chance to read it. He didn't even capitalize on the question as an opportunity to voice support for universal health care. Not so the savvy McCloskey. The Republican chimed in that it was an "injustice" that we don't have a national health-care plan. Afterward, Feeder asked McNerney spokesman Tor Michaels for clarification: Does the candidate support universal health care or not? The answer: "It's not a yes or no question for us." Arrggggg! Are these people taking speech lessons from John Kerry?

After the press conference, McCloskey described himself as being more critical of the Bush administration than McNerney regarding the war in Iraq. When Feeder pointed out to McCloskey that he sounded more liberal than many Democrats, he chuckled and said, "Part of that has to do with the uncertainty of the Democratic Party of who they are." Democrats such as Congresswoman Anna Eshoo from Palo Alto, he added, would probably make fine moderate Republicans. So why didn't McCloskey run as a Dem? No one asked him, he said, and, well, he never considered it an option. "I've been a Republican for too long," he reasoned.

Supporting Jerry McNerney

From the Tri-Valley Herald:

A veteran former congressman threw his weight behind congressional hopeful Jerry McNerney on Wednesday in his quest to unseat Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, in the 11th district.
Paul "Pete" McCloskey Jr. moved from his Yolo County farm to Lodi to run against Pombo, a seven-term congressman, in the Republican primary election, in which he got about 32 percent of the vote. But McCloskey said he decided last week to reach across the aisle to endorse the Democrat he thought to be "more seasoned" than a challenger when they met during primary election events. "I'm confident Jerry McNerney, an honorable man, will vote his conscience and will be honest," McCloskey said during a press conference held at McNerney's Dublin campaign headquarters....

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