The International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s West Coast dock workers — including those at the ports of Oakland and San Francisco — have voted to stop work tomorrow, Thursday, May 1, to protest the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Joined by other labor organizations and community groups, they’ll be rallying against the war and for workers’ and immigrants’ rights.

In Oakland, there’ll be a rally and cultural performances from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Fruitvale BART Plaza; a 4 to 6 p.m. march from there along International Boulevard to City Hall; and then another rally and set of performances at Frank Ogawa Plaza from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Among the confirmed speakers are Green Party presidential candidate and former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney; ILWU Local 10 executive board member Clarence Thomas; Alameda County Central Labor Council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Sharon Cornu; Oakland Education Association President Betty Olson-Jones; Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition advocacy coordinator Evelyn Sanchez; and Mujeres Unidas y Activas program director Maria Jimenez.

There’ll be major happenings in San Francisco too, including a noontime rally at Justin Herman Plaza with McKinney, Cindy Sheehan, Alexander Cockburn, Danny Glover and other speakers.

We’ve got several hot political events coming up in the Bay Area, starting tonight:

Looking further ahead, the Commonwealth Club of California announced yesterday that it’s serving up a whopping political double-header on Monday, May 19. First, Arianna Huffington — co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post — will be touting her new book, “Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution and Made Us All Less Safe” at the Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St. in San Francisco. The program is at noon, book-signing at 1 p.m.; it’s $15 for clulb members, $30 for nonmembers, with tickets available online. Then, the same day, San Jose’s own Mary Tillman — mother of pro football star turned slain Army Ranger Pat Tillman — will “chronicle her family’s harrowing journey through the maze of bureaucracy, red tape and cover-ups to learn the true circumstances of Pat’s death. She will also recount memories of him as a loving son, brother, husband, friend and teammate.” There’s a 5:30 p.m. wine-and-cheese reception before the 6 p.m. program, both at the club’s offices on the second floor of 595 Market St. in San Francisco; it’s free for club members, $18 for nonmembers, with tickets available online.

Grassroots conservative group Move America Forward, which has spearheaded efforts to shame and boycott Berkeley for the city’s hostile stance toward its U.S. Marine Corps recruiting station, will hold a news conference tomorrow morning, Friday, March 14, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to release a report listing acts of civil disobedience or violence at military recruiting stations across the nation in recent years.

From MAF’s news release:

Move America Forward will provide detailed accounts of these attacks, including photographs and documents, to members of the media in attendance.

A new national television ad campaign calling attention to these attacks will also be unveiled.

Attacks on military recruiting centers include shots fired at offices (as happened in Denver, Colorado), bombs planted (a real one in St. Louis, fake ones in Oregon and the detonated explosion at the Times Square recruiting center), windows smashed, manure dumped on recruiting offices, human blood and feces smeared on the offices, recruiters cars have been firebombed (in Alabama and Maryland).

The acts of aggression against military recruiters are part of a broader effort by anti-war activists called “counter-recruitment.” Anti-war/anti-military activists have explained to Move America Forward that the increase in counter-recruitment efforts stems from frustration with Congress for continuing to fund the missions of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Code Pink and others have indicated that if Congress won’t cut off funding for the war, then they will cut off the flow of available bodies to fight in the war.

Move America Forward vehemently opposes this rationale given the all-volunteer nature of today’s U.S. Armed Forces.

In addition, Move America Forward has also documented discussions by anti-military activists coordinating attacks against military recruiting centers and suggesting ways to reduce the chance of facing criminal prosecution. These findings will also be shared at the news conference.

UPDATE @ 12:50 P.M. THURSDAY: Though I’ve not seen the report yet, MAF spokesman Joe Wierzbicki just sent me a list of recruiting station incidents from recent years. See ‘em after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, wants his 11th District constituents to remember the troops this holiday season.

He’ll be collecting holiday cards for soldiers recovering from battle at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.; for sailors and Marines at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.; and for National Guard and Reserve soldiers stationed at Parks Reserve Forces Training Area right here in Dublin.

“The holiday season can be a difficult time of year for those who serve our country in uniform, particularly those who have returned from battle injured,” he said in a news release. “Some are separated from family, friends, and the traditions that have brought comfort and joy throughout the years and all of them are faced with a life forever changed by their service to our nation. Thoughtful words of encouragement and support from the great people of the 11th district can do a lot to boost the morale of our brave men and women.”

So McNerney wants his constituents to make or buy holiday cards, inscribe them with messages of thanks to service members, and then send or bring the card — unaddressed and with an unsealed envelope — to one of his district offices, in Stockton or Pleasanton, by December 9. His staff will address and seal the envelopes, and he’ll deliver them.

McNerney’s Stockton office is at 2222 Grand Canal Blvd., Suite 7, Stockton, CA 95207; his Pleasanton office is at 5776 Stoneridge Mall Road, Suite 175, Pleasanton, CA 94588.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, has been elected to chair the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Subcommittee on Future Security and Defense Capabilities.

Tauscher, already chairwoman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, returned today from the 53rd Annual Session of The NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, where she’d joined about 350 legislators from NATO member, partner and observer countries to discuss major security issues on the Alliance’s agenda, including Afghanistan and Iran.

As the Parliamentary Assembly subcommittee’s chairwoman, she’s charged with working to ensure that NATO invests in better defense systems, people, and platforms, and that partner countries make greater investments in interoperable systems.

“The new, emerging, and existing threats to America are very similar to the threats that our NATO allies are facing,” she said in a news release. “This is the same group that came to action when we were attacked on September 11, saying an attack on one member is an attack on all, and it’s a partnership that we need to foster. Working with our allies allows us to develop new and better strategies to protect our homelands, promote economic security, and it strengthens the transatlantic relationship at the core of the NATO alliance.”

Each of the Parliamentary Assembly’s eight subcommittees usually meets twice per year.

The Parliamentary Assembly is not formally connected to NATO; rather, its a forum for member nations and associates to hash out policy issues and build mutual understanding. Delegates to the Iceland session developed policy recommendations for NATO on Afghanistan, the Western Balkans, missile defense, NATO’s next round of enlargement, climate change, and the Alliance’s relations with Russia. They were briefed by fellow parliamentarians, experts and policymakers on issues such as Iran and nuclear proliferation; security in southeast Europe; Islam in the Caucasus; the relationship between intelligence, terrorism and the preservation of civil liberties; the prospects for a new Strategic Concept for NATO; and India’s economic development.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday to make “a major announcement… about her new role in the Congressional campaign to repeal the military’s ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service personnel,” according to a press release.

Tauscher has long been opposed to the policy, co-sponsoring bills to repeal it and using her seat on the House Armed Services Committee to call for hearings on it, particularly in light of military forces already stretched thin by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, with Democrats in the majority, Tauscher and like-minded allies might see their chance.

H.R. 1246, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal the policy, is pending in the House with 125 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, including all of the Bay Area delegation except for Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.

But that bill’s sponsor, Marty Meehan, D-Mass., will leaving Congress next month to become Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell… perhaps this week’s announcement has something to do with that?

Tauscher will be joined at Wednesday’s news conference by Sharra Greer, director of law and policy for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. They’ll surely note that more than 11,000 service personnel have been dismissed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” since 1993, and the Government Accountability Office has found that nearly 800 of them had “mission-critical” skills, including more than 300 language experts. The armed forces fire at least two people per day for being lesbian, gay or bisexual.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, on Friday sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding demanding documents relating to how and when Pentagon and Bush Administration officials learned of the circumstances surrounding the April 2004 friendly fire death in Afghanistan of Army Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former NFL star who hailed from the South Bay.

Waxman’s committee held a hearing on Tillman’s death earlier this week; he wants the documents turned over to him by May 18. This is only one of the high-profile, high-stakes investigations the committee is pursuing at the moment: Others include pre-war intelligence on Iraq; the White House’s use of private e-mail accounts to evade open-government laws; and the White House’s political campaign briefings to federal agencies.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, opened a small can of whupp-butt this morning upon U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who in a newspaper interview Monday had likened homosexual acts to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces. Said Tauscher:

“I am disturbed and disgusted by General Pace’s most recent comments on morality. I cannot accept that a man who has played a critical role in carrying out a war without a plan, without an exit strategy, and in which our servicemen and women were sent to fight without proper body armor and armored vehicles, has any standing to judge what should be considered moral.

“It is appalling that while the President is promoting sending more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs would attack gay and lesbian members of our armed forces who are second-to-none in their bravery, sacrifice and commitment to serving America. General Pace owes an apology to all men and women in uniform; he should tell them that their service is deeply valued by our nation regardless of their sexual orientation.”

Pace now says he should’ve focused more in the interview on the Defense Department policy about gays and “less on my personal moral views,” but has not offered an apology.

Breaking hearts ain’t what it used to be: As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, marshals her forces for three days of debate on a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq, activists on her home turf aren’t nearly satisfied. They’ll bring broken hearts to her San Francisco office at 11 a.m. tomorrow, urging her to demonstrate her Valentine’s Day love for Iraqis and our soldiers by halting funding for the war. The group plans weekly sit-ins at the office until Pelosi cuts the funding. “Passing a non-binding resolution is ridiculous. It will do nothing to stop this war,” Janet Weil, from Bay Area CODEPINK, said in a news release. “We want Nancy Pelosi to be a real leader and lead Congress to stop funding this disastrous war.”

Funding for troops but not vets?: House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has announced Republicans today will use a parliamentary procedure to force a vote on whether they can offer a proposal by Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, to bar Congress from cutting off funding for American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’ll be interesting to see whether Boehner, Johnson and the rest of their party are as enthusiastic about ensuring funding for the troops once they’ve returned home: the Bush Administration’s latest budget proposal has a slight increase for veterans care next year, but then cuts it in 2009 and 2010 and freezes it thereafter, leaving the already stretched Department of Veterans Affairs in the lurch after the war in Iraq (hopefully) winds down.

More college $$$: House Education and Labor Commitee Chairman George Miller, D-Martinez; his Senate counterpart, Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.; U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.; and Rep. Tom Petri, R-Wisc., today unveiled the Student Aid Reward Act, which they say would boost college scholarships without costing taxpayers a dime. The idea is to generate $13 billion in savings, according to the Congressional Budget Office, by encouraging colleges and universities to use less expensive federal student-loan programs; the bill would then reinvest at least $10 billion of that in additional Pell Grant scholarships and graduate fellowships. Also today, Miller and Education and Labor ranking Republican Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, introduced the Pell Grant Equity Act to repeal a rule known as “tuition sensitivity,” which reduces the annual maximum Pell Grant for students at schools with very low tuition; it might affect as many as 100,000 students per year. “Students should not be financially penalized for attending a low-cost school, and colleges and universities should not be punished for reducing their tuition costs,” Miller said in a news release.

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.