No Net taxes: Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, today introduced the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act of 2007, seeking to permanently extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes and duplicative and discriminatory taxes on Internet commerce. The bill has 34 original cosponsors — 14 Democrats and 20 Republicans — including Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo; Michael Honda, D-San Jose; and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose. Congress first instituted a temporary moratorium in 1998 to encourage online commerce’s growth, and extended it in 2004 for three years, but it’ll expire in November. “Passage of this legislation will ensure, once and for all, that the growth of Internet access and e-commerce will not be hampered by unwarranted taxation,” Eshoo, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, said in her news release.

Middle-class plight: House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Martinez, convened a hearing today to hear from workers and economic experts about challenges facing the middle class. “While the business pages across America report that profits and productivity are up for many corporations, we know that’s only half of the economic story,” he said. “The other half is the story of how middle-class Americans are struggling to make ends meet. I hear from workers who were laid off from a good-paying manufacturing job and wound up in a new job that pays far less than did the one they lost. I hear from workers whose company just dumped their pension plan, forcing them to scramble to find other ways to get by in retirement. I hear from workers whose basic expenses — for housing, food, education, transportation, and health care — keep going up, even while their paychecks stay about the same size.” Read the testimony from Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker; Rutgers University Center for Women and Work director Eileen Appelbaum; and Center for Economic Progress economist Christian Weller. The archived Webcast is here.

Stay out of Iran: Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, hosted a forum of experts today to discuss current U.S. policy toward Iran: potential implications of preemptive war there; non-military alternatives to addressing Iran’s nuclear ambitions; and engaging Iran in efforts to strengthen regional stability by ending Iraq’s civil war. She announced the introduction of her Iran Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 2007, which would pledge the U.S. “not to enter into a preemptive war against Iran in the absence of an imminent threat, and then only in accordance with international law and constitutional and statutory requirements for congressional authorization.” It also would block funding for “any covert action for the purpose of causing regime change in Iran or to carry out any military action against Iran in the absence of an imminent threat, in accordance with international law.” And it declares both that no previous act of Congress authorizes military force against Iran, and that there should be no preconditions to engaging Iran in diplomatic dialogue.

Oakland activist Rae Abileah, 24, was one of six women arrested Tuesday morning at the Washington, D.C. office of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, during a CODEPINK protest urging the presidential aspirant to stop supporting funding for the war in Iraq.

The group, dressed in their organization’s signature pink slips, held banners with slogans such as, “Hillary: Be a Woman for Peace” and “It takes an Invasion to Raze a Village,” and eventually entered Clinton’s office to weave a web of pink yarn and ribbons symbolizing Clinton’s web of lies, their news release said. Clinton wasn’t in her office Tuesday.

The other five arrestees were Heather Box, 25, of San Francisco; Leslie Angeline, 50, of San Francisco; Sandee Scott, 52, of Monterey; Sonia Silbert, 26, of Washington, D.C.; and Samantha Miller, 21, of Los Angeles. They face disorderly conduct charges.

CODEPINK cofounders Medea Benjamin of San Francisco and Jodie Evans of Venice, Calif., later Tuesday were detained by Capitol Police after interrupting a Senate Foreign Relations Committee nomination hearing for John Deputy Secretary of State nominee John Negroponte; they’d stood up and spoke out in objection to Negroponte’s alleged tolerance of Honduran death squads during his term as the U.S. Ambassador to that Central American nation from 1981 to 1985.

We’ll start posting a weekly nugget o’ fun featuring our illustrious governor because — well, because we can, and we figure there’s enough video of him out there to last a lifetime. First up, from 1977:

Thank god Gray Davis never tried this.

U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wrote Friday to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that “the communities that surround existing plants need to be confident that the NRC, as the regulator charged with nuclear safety, did all it could to ensure that plants defend against current security threats. In particular, communities should be assured that the plants are prepared to defend against large attacking forces and commercial aircraft.”

Failing to address these issues, Boxer wrote, would be at odds with the intent of Congress in passing the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Well, it seems the commissioners will have some serious explaining to do when they next appear before Boxer’s committee: They voted Monday against requiring existing nuclear power plants to be protected against attacks by airplanes, or against more than a small number of ground attackers.

This, despite the 9/11 Commission finding that the plotters had considered targeting nuclear reactors, and the common knowledge that a successful terrorist attack on a nuclear plant could cause a devastating radioactive release.

“Rather than requiring measures to prevent a plane crash from damaging vulnerable parts of a nuclear plant, which would be the smartest course, the government is relying on post-crash measures and evacuation plans to attempt to ‘mitigate’ the public’s exposure to radiation,” said Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. “Fire prevention is always better than fire fighting. Nuclear terrorism prevention is far more prudent than trying to reduce radiation exposures after the fact.”

Oakland freelance writer and radio journalist Sarah Olson is in the free and clear now that the U.S. government has agreed to drop two counts from its case against Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who called the Iraq war illegal and refused to deploy.

Olson, 31, had faced a felony charge if she’d continued fighting a subpoena to testify in the case; she insists doing so would’ve gutted her credibility as a journalist.

Watada, whose court-martial is scheduled for Feb. 5, still faces up to four years behind bars if convicted of missing movement for his refusal to deploy last June and of two counts of conduct unbecoming an officer for comments made at a Veterans for Peace Convention in Seattle.

The two conduct-unbecoming counts dropped Monday carried up to two years in prison, and stemmed from comments he’d made to Olson and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s Gregg Kakesako in June explaining why he refused to go to Iraq and why he was challenging the Bush administration’s reasons for going to war. In exchange, Watada’s attorney Eric Seitz agreed that the two subpoenaed reporters will not have to testify.

Some e-mails about the Tribune’s top story today: Civic bucks bigger than ever

Firstly I would like to find out how to obtain a 200K job in Oakland. Even with my college education I have been unable to obtain such pay in the Bay Area. Secondly I want you to take a hard look at my children, our future and have you tell them why our schools are in such a mess but we can find a way shell out +200K in salaries. I can guarantee you that there
are qualified people that will wait in line for 120K in pay to replace Deborah Edgerly and we would get 2 for the price of one.

–Markus

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I cannot get my head around the compensation.

I had to translate it into a normal workweek. Using the figures you reported, and assuming these employees get time and a half for their overtime hours, it would still appear that the high paid fire inspector is on the job from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm seven days a week, 365 days a year! If this person only works 5 days a week, that is an 16 hour day - 52 weeks of the year!

How can this person possibly function at the level necessary to perform his/her job? I don’t care how much it saves the City in the short run by hiring fewer people.

–Sandra Turnbull

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad W. Allen will testify tomorrow before the House Transportation and Infrastructure’s Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee on the Deepwater program, a push to modernize and replace the Coast Guard’s aging ships and aircraft and improve command and control and logistics systems.

Four USCG cutters moored at Alameda already have been upgraded as part of the program, but Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general released a report Monday concluding that the multi-billion-dollar effort — run by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. — has design flaws that have led to spiraling maintenance costs and could reduce the “improved” ships’ longevity unless corrected. That is, the refurbished cutters might not be able to take 230 days a year at sea over a period of 30 years, as the contract required.

And as if that hearing might not be a tough enough crowd, Allen will hop a flight afterward and finish the day by speaking at 5:30 p.m. in the Marines Memorial Club, 609 Sutter St. in San Francisco. It’s part of the George P. Shultz Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Northern California; tickets cost $49 for members, $59 for nonmembers, $25 for active-duty military personnel.

UPDATE @ 3:20 p.m. — Crank up your C-SPAN: Barbara Lee will be wielding the House’s gavel as Speaker pro tempore from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. PST tomorrow, surely striking fear into the hearts of conservatives far and wide.

After visiting Iraq Friday, a bipartisan Congressional delegation — led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo — met Saturday with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad, and then released the following statement today after visiting Afghanistan and meeting with President Hamid Karzai:

The purposes of our trip to Afghanistan were to salute our troops, visit with President Karzai, and meet with leaders of the NATO military effort. For five and a half years, our troops have been on the front line of the war on terror in Afghanistan. It is appropriate that we come here early in the new Congress to pay tribute to the men and women who are serving with great distinction in this critical task.

In our discussions, President Karzai stressed the crucial importance of reconstruction. The delegation commended him for his leadership and discussed additional steps that would enhance the authority of the central government and improve the security situation in the country. We are encouraged by reports of a proposed supplemental assistance package to enhance our efforts to assist our Afghan partners. We will expeditiously consider this legislation and urge the international community to invest more fully in Afghanistan’s future.

The delegation is deeply concerned about the escalating poppy cultivation problem in Afghanistan. Without aggressive action, this drug problem risks undermining the efforts of the Afghan government and coalition forces to stabilize the country.

Many of us have been convinced for some time that additional forces would benefit the forgotten war in Afghanistan. We are pleased our commanders will now have larger numbers of American troops to prepare for challenging operations in the spring. In addition, the delegation appreciates the contributions of our NATO partners and looks forward to the fulfillment of their military commitments to this mission.

We were honored to meet with in Afghanistan our troops, whose patriotism, courage, and devotion to duty are a source of great pride. Their efforts often do not receive attention reflecting the magnitude of their mission. We are grateful to them and to their families for all they are doing for our nation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, led a senior bipartisan Congressional delegation to Baghdad today, meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other officials even as a bomb blast killed 15 people and wounded 55 in one of Baghdad’s marketplaces.

Also on the trip were Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo; Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.; Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas; Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa.; State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-NY; and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member David Hobson, R-Ohio.

The delegation just released this statement via Pelosi’s office:

Our delegation traveled to Iraq to thank our troops for the way they are doing their difficult jobs under extremely dangerous conditions. We expressed our unwavering support for them, and for their families, as well as our hope that they will come home safely and soon.

In meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad, and senior U.S. military officers, including multi-national commander General George Casey, we stressed our belief that it is well past time for the Iraqis to take primary responsibility for the security of their nation. The delegation’s view is that American forces should quickly begin to transition from a combat role to one focused on training, counter-terrorism, force protection, and controlling Iraq’s borders.

We are convinced that there must be a political solution to the problems in Iraq. The sooner Iraqi leaders make necessary political accommodations, including amending their constitution to resolve outstanding differences among all Iraqi communities, the better the chances for ending the sectarian violence. We encourage active diplomacy in the region.

We were inspired by the patriotism and dedication of the American troops we were privileged to meet. We left Iraq with a renewed appreciation for their courage and the selflessness they bring to the great service they provide to our country.

UPDATE - Read Tom Lantos’ statement after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »