The Washington Post reports that when Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, visited Iraq last weekend, she found Green Zone personnel had been prepped for her arrival with the distribution of a brief bio noting her statements against the war:

(Click to enlarge.)

It’s not entirely accurate.

The bio says Tauscher’s latest vote on Iraq was in favor of legislation requiring troop withdrawal to start within 120 days of the bill’s enactment. She did vote for that bill in July, but she also she voted this month for her own bill requiring that any regular Armed Forces member or unit deployed to Iraq must then have an equal period of time at home before being redeployed, and that no unit or member of a Reserve component including the National Guard be redeployed to Iraq within three years of their previous deployment.

But knowing that, of course, might’ve endeared Tauscher to some of the troops clutching those bios as she visited, she noted to the Post. “This is beyond parsing. This is being slimed in the Green Zone.”

Chicago has beaten out Oakland, Minneapolis and Detroit to host the 2008 convention of the Green Party of the United States.

The Green Party of Alameda County had put together a detailed proposal to host the convention either at the Marriott/Oakland Convention Center in downtown Oakland, or at Berkeley Community Theater. But Chicago’s proposal won out as delegates from state Green Parties and caucuses in the party’s National Committee completed their vote Wednesday, and so the Windy City will host the gathering next July 10-13.

“We were quite impressed with the presentations from all four cities, and we know Greens faced a hard choice,” said Ruth Weill, co-chair of the Green Party’s Annual National Meeting Committee. “We thank all of them and congratulate Chicago, and we look forward to seeing everyone — and the media too — in Chicago next summer.”

At least two California Greens have declared intent to run for president next year: Kent Mesplay, a San Diego air quality inspector who ran in the 2004 Green presidential primary and the 2006 Green U.S. Senate primary; and Paul Kangas, a San Francisco man who apparently believes that fasting can cure cancer and that George H.W. Bush assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Here’s the audio — via WCCO, the CBS affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul — of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s police interrogation following his arrest in June at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport; he pleaded guilty this month to disorderly conduct, but now says he regrets the plea and in fact did nothing wrong.

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House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, told me yesterday that he believes the forthcoming Government Accountability Office report on political and military progress in Iraq will be “scathing.” Sure enough, the Washington Post reports today that the “strikingly negative” GAO draft — which will be sent in its final form to Congress next week for a hearing by Lantos’ committee — finds “Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, today notes President Bush “is demanding tens of billions more dollars for the war in Iraq despite non-partisan conclusions, such as the draft GAO report and the recent National Intelligence Estimate, that the Iraqi government has failed to achieve required reforms.

“As in the past, President Bush stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the facts on the ground about the sectarian civil war in Iraq or the growing bipartisan opposition to his failed policies,” she said. “He insists that our soldiers sacrifice even more, and taxpayers spend billions more dollars for an Iraqi government incapable or unwilling to institute reforms required by the President himself.

“With the President continuing to stay the course in Iraq, Republicans will have to decide whether they will continue to vote with him or join Democrats and the vast majority of Americans who are demanding a new direction in Iraq and refocusing America’s efforts on fighting the real threats of terrorism around the world.”

BTW, I asked Lantos yesterday what he would say to the 80 or so protestors who took part in an antiwar vigil Tuesday night outside his district office at Fourth Street and El Camino Real in San Mateo, one of many of such vigils held across the nation that night, organized by MoveOn.org and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

“This is not an unfriendly presence, they are welcome, but I think it’s important for them to understand that members of Congress operate within the reality of the American government’s framework,” he replied.

“Both Nancy (Pelosi) and I have basically supported the same general direction that they are asking for, namely a de-escalation in contrast to the administration’s policy of escalation,” Lantos said. “But the last piece of legislation on this subject that the Democratic leadership sent to the White House was vetoed by the president, and he has a sufficient number of Republicans to sustain his veto.”

Given that, the only options are either to win over enough votes to override the veto or to replace the President, he said, “but camping in front of Nancy Pelosi’s house will not bring about a U.S. policy change” — a dig at the CodePink protesters who staked out Pelosi’s San Francisco home and district office in recent weeks.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, has some tough talk for syndicated talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, who last week claimed Democrats “want to get us out of Iraq, but they can’t wait to get us into Darfur… There are two reasons. What color is the skin of the people in Darfur? It’s black. And who do the Democrats really need to keep voting for them? If they lose a significant percentage of this voting bloc, they’re in trouble.” A caller responded, “The black population,” to which Limbaugh said, “Right.”

Listen to the audio here.

Lee responds:

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t dignify something Rush Limbaugh said with a response, but it’s important to set some facts straight. At a time when Republicans and Democrats disagree on a wide range of issues, one area where there is strong bipartisan agreement is on ending the genocide taking place in Darfur. Just to give you an example, Senator [Sam] Brownback [R-KS] came over to the House to testify in favor of my Darfur divestment legislation! That legislation was passed by the House by a vote of 418-1! The fact that Rush Limbaugh not only doesn’t know what he is talking about, but is content to substitute racist political rhetoric for the facts just underscores what a destructive and polarizing influence he is on our political discourse.”

Rudy Giuliani rolled out his “California Business Leaders for Rudy” team today to “spread Rudy’s commitment to fiscal discipline, ending wasteful government spending and cutting taxes.”

The chairwoman is Kim Quinones, a vice president of Ramirez and Company in Pacific Palisades. The members are:

Susan Allen, Owner, Bayside Communications, Capitola
Pam Corradi, Owner, Corradi Arms, Inc., Burbank
James Crean, Vice President, Deep Gold Exploration, Inc., Rancho Palos Verdes
Jack Davis, Owner, Jeda Generation Auto Upholstery, San Jose
Joe Destein, Self-Employed Developer, Novato
Howard Epstein, Investor, San Francisco
Don Genhart, Owner, Don’s Pet Service, Palm Desert
Susan Gibbs, Membership Director, CICC Wellness Center, Colusa
Mike Harris, Vice President, Cross Creek, Petaluma
Ted Jackson, self-employed consultant, Sacramento
John Karczynski, Mortgage Broker, Washington Mutual S&L, Anaheim
Andrew Kline, Partner, Park Lane, Los Angeles
Eric Linder, Account Executive, USA National Title, Corona
Vic Marani, Self-Employed Consultant, Rio Del Mar
Teresa Merkle, Co-Owner, Paradigm Shift World Wide, Northridge
Wendy Moodie, Co-Owner, Paradigm Shift World Wide, Northridge
Debi Schultz, Self-Employed Event Planner, Simi Valley
Stuart Weil, Owner, Blue Lobster Farms, Madera

Note: Only two — Epstein and Davis — are from the Bay Area. Epstein also is the San Francisco Republican Party’s vice chairman for political affairs. Davis, the only Silicon Valley member, owns an auto-upholstery business and is president of the Santa Clara Valley Republican Assembly, the South Bay affiliate of the conservative grassroots California Republican Assembly.

Not exactly a Bay Area powerhouse, here…

Vote Hope — the San Francisco-based Section 527 issue-advocacy group indirectly touting Barack Obama for President, despite Obama’s stated opposition to 527s and preference that people support his campaign directly — has been misunderstood, communications director Jenifer Ancona told me this morning.

Vote Hope is still smarting from an Aug. 8 San Francisco Chronicle story which noted Obama has refused to take money from political action committees and has criticized 527s. That same day at a news conference in Oakland, Obama was asked if Vote Hope’s support constitutes hypocrisy given his stated opposition to 527s.

“It would be hypocrisy if I had anything to do with them, since I just heard of them. This is not something that I authorized or had any part of,” he replied. “My recommendation to people who are interested in supporting me is to support me through our campaign — the way over 250,000 donors have supported us, the way hundreds of thousands of volunteers have supported us. Get involved in the campaign that we’ve set up, that is above board, that is transparent, that is legal. And I think if people channel their energies in that way, we’ll all be better off.”

Ancona told me today “it’s not that we disagree with him… It’s just that there are more people out there who we can harness. I just think he doesn’t know what we’re doing… I feel like if he could see that, I don’t know how he could disagree with giving people an outlet to get involved in politics for the first time.”

Indeed, he doesn’t disagree with involving young voters, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told me today — he just wants them “to participate directly with the campaign.”

A new “Generation Obama” multi-city grassroots network — including an effort here in San Francisco — geared towards younger voters kicked off this weekend, LaBolt noted, and “Camp Obama” traning sessions — including one held Aug. 11 in San Francisco — have prepared mobilizers in 40 of California’s 53 Congressional districts to leverage their own contacts into support for the campaign. “We’re running a bottom-up campaign.”

More after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

This week, and purely for the fun of it, our governor’s guest appearance in AC/DC’s video for “Big Gun,” from the soundtrack of the 1993 Schwarzenegger action film, “The Last Action Hero.” The real fun starts about two minutes in, as Arnold does his impression of famed guitarist Angus Young…

Previous SVOTWs: August 21, August 7, July 31, July 24, July 17, July 10, July 3, June 26, June 19, June 12, June 5, May 29, May 22, May 15, May 8, May 1, April 24, April 17, April 10, April 3, March 27, March 20, March 13, March 6, February 27, February 20, February 13, February 6, January 30.

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq and MoveOn.org are organizing “Take a Stand Day” vigils across the country tomorrow evening to urge Congress to take a stand against the war in Iraq. In the Bay Area, vigils are scheduled for sites including: