by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Just to show that I'm not reflexively opposed to everything Dianne Feinstein does, she is on the floor of the Senate right now leading the fight in getting the entire US government to follow the Army Field Manual for interrogations and intelligence gathering, which would effectively ban waterboarding and any other forms of torture from being used by the CIA.  She has worked very hard on this issue, and it looks like she'll get passage in the Senate on this today.  That's very significant.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

The G.O.P. obstructionists have struck again. A tentative agreement between Democratic leader, Senate Pro Tem Don Perata, and the Governor on a bond issue designed to protect both the San Joaquin Delta and transfers of water South has been blown up by Republicans in the Senate.

The Republican Senators want to add the contentious issue of a peripheral canal to the package. They also want the bond money appropriated “continuously” as opposed to through the budget in the manner of all other appropriations.

Both objections aren’t serious. They are simply another effort to punish the Governor for his neglect of the members of his party.

Petty politics and peevishness submarine important public policy goals – again!

Why not make all appropriations “continuous”? Republicans would oppose that because it would deny them the ability to get publicity by holding up the budget which requires at least two Republican votes in the Senate. They want bond money for storage to be continuously appointed because they fear Democrats would act in the same obstructionist way they act.

But Democrats are not obstructionist.

by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

by Stephen Cassidy [courtesy of Blog for America]

Water-boarding is term that describes strapping an individual to a board, with a towel pulled tightly across his face, and pouring water on him or her to cut off air and simulate drowning.  It was developed during the Spanish Inquisition.

When asked directly last week whether he thought waterboarding is constitutional, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey was evasive.  NPR noted that Mukasey "danced around the issue of whether waterboarding actually is torture and stopped short of saying that it is." "If it amounts to torture," Mukasey said carefully, "then it is not constitutional."

Bill Richardson has stated,

Waterboarding is torture, and anyone who is unwilling to identify it as such is not qualified to be the chief legal officer of the United States of America.  If I were in the U.S. Senate, I would vote against Mukasey unless he denounces such specific forms of torture.

 What about the Democrats in the U.S. Senate and other Democratic Presidential candidates?  Will they oppose Mukasey unless he denounces the use of torture by our government?  Let's all join together and call on the Senate to vote "no" on torture by defeating Mukasey's nomination.

by Brian Leubitz [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

The DREAM Act comes up for a vote in the Senate today, and while our two Senators support it, it will be a close call. Its Republican sponsors, Sens. Hagel and Lugar, will need to twist enough arms to reach the 60 vote threshold necessary for cloture.  Over at California Progress Report, Peter Schrag wonders why Governor Schwarzenegger has been so silent about the federal version of an Act he vetoed recently based upon the $2million of "budget impacts."

If that need is so great, why aren't Schwarzenegger et al. also demanding passage of the Dream Act? Repeated queries to the governor's office produced a blank. Worse, despite the thousands of students who've been petitioning Congress, no one in the governor's office seems to know what the Dream Act is.

If you need more reason why we need this bill, check this post out on the importance of education to these students. The Governor needs to make a statement, and so do we. Over the flip, we have a list of Senators that need so talking to, courtesy of Migra Matters. If you have friends in those states, please have them call their Senators immediately!.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

A bipartisan group in Congress has been struggling for years to pass the federal Dream Act, which would allow an estimated 360,000 young illegal immigrants who are recent graduates of U.S. high schools – many are now in college – to get on the track toward legal residency. An estimated 45,000 live in California.

The act is scheduled for a cloture vote in the Senate today. If it gets the required 60 votes – hardly a sure thing – it would head off the filibuster threat that conservatives have used to block it before.

The act covers students brought here by their parents as young children. Many don't speak their native language and know little about the country where they were born. Collectively they represent an investment of some $18 billion-plus in their American education.

Despite that education and their almost total assimilation into American culture – Americans in all but the right to call themselves that – they live in the shadows, can't get the jobs their skills qualify them for, can't get driver's licenses and worry constantly about deportation to places they don't know and to which they desperately don't want to go. They study in the hope someday things will change.