Some names have disappeared from the endorsement list on the Web site of Wilma Chan, the former Assemblywoman facing off against current Assemblywoman Loni Hancock in the June 3 Democratic primary to succeed state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata — names including Perata himself.

Compare the old, cached version to the current version.

Perata earlier had granted a dual endorsement to both Chan and Hancock in this 9th State Senate District race, both of whom generally have been his allies in the Legislature. Perata had been singing Chan’s praises for years, including right after she helped him nail down a judicial ruling cementing his right to seek a final four-year term in 2004.

But now Perata’s name and face are gone from Chan’s endorsement list, and I’ve got a copy of a letter Perata sent to Hancock last week praising her as “far and away the best person for the job.” Perata’s political consultant returned my e-mail message this afternoon confirming the letter’s authenticity, but wrote that he couldn’t break out of a meeting to discuss with me who Perata actually now endorses.

Also gone from Chan’s endorsement list is Alameda Mayor Beverly Johnson — a notable name, given Chan’s base of support in the island city she calls home — and Oakland School Board member Alice Spearman. There’s not much ambiguity about why they’re gone from the list; both Johnson and Spearman apparently sent letters to Chan last Thursday expressing their support for Hancock and demanding that Chan remove their names from all Chan campaign materials immediately. “Any failure to abide by my request will force me to take immediate legal action,” Spearman wrote. Ouch.

Spearman couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, but Johnson told me tonight she had endorsed Chan “a couple of years ago” yet recently decided Hancock’s the better choice; she said she sent the letter to Chan on Thursday and talked with her Friday, and that all was amicable as Chan assured her that her name would be removed from the campaign’s Web site and literature.

Two Chan campaign staffers haven’t yet returned phone calls and e-mails about this; watch for updates if and when they do.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will host a free forum to address the HIV/AIDS crisis in the African-American community from 10 a.m. to noon tomorrow, Friday, May 9 at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding will discuss ongoing efforts by the agency to address the local HIV/AIDS crisis, and the Bay Area Black Nurses Association, CAL-PEP, Healthy Oakland Preventative Care Pathways and experts from local HIV/AIDS prevention or advocacy organizations will participate in a panel discussion. Participants can receive free on-site health screenings and HIV/AIDS testing, and hyper-allergenic pillow cases and sheets will be distributed.

Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, in cooperation with Kaiser Permanente will host a free Women’s Health Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 10, in the Karp meeting facility at the San Leandro Public Library, 300 Estudillo Ave. The event offers free screening on bone density, blood glucose levels and more as well as information on nutrition, fitness, cancer, heart disease, mental health and other women’s health concerns. Advance reservations are required; call 510-583-8818 or visit Hayashi’s Web site to RSVP.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and his running mate, former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, will speak at 7 p.m. Sunday, May 11 at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St. in San Francisco; organizers request a $10 contribution, $5 for students or low-income people, but nobody will be turned away. Nader will be in Berkeley at 1:30 p.m. Monday, May 12, to speak to the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, at 1924 Cedar St. And Gonzlaez will address the Commonwealth Club of California at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14 at the club’s offices on the second floor of 595 Market St. in San Francisco; tickets cost $12 for club members, $20 for non-members or $7 for students with valid ID, and are available through the club’s Web site.

Independent vice presidential candidate and former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez — Ralph Nader’s running mate — will have his art shown in the back gallery at Johansson Projects, a contemporary art gallery at 2300 Telegraph Ave. in Oakland.

Entitled “Crossing the Delaware,” the show includes “collages from found objects creating faux personal narratives that evoke nostalgia and trigger subconscious embedded memories and associations. His art focuses primarily with found paper fragments, creating objects that adhere to his personal sense of equilibrium.” Kicked off with an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. next Thursday, May 15, the exhibit will run through June 13.

It’s not Gonzalez’s first exhibit. Left in SF posted some info in April 2007 about an exhibit at San Francisco’s Lincart:

Gonzalez used materials that he had found throughout San Francisco to create collages. Most of the pieces are small and used two or three items. There were two that he took cream color cardboard and broke the cardboard into pieces and placed it on a cream color backing. The examples are “With the Throat of a Silver Vale” and “Its Starry Paleness.”

Part of the fun was identifying the original source of the material that he was using for his collage. It took several of us to figure out that he was using a parking lot ticket for one of his collages.

His best creation was identified as “Winged Angel”. Using a paint sample from Kelly Moore Paints (the colors on the sample are identified Winged Angel and Beth’s Kiss), he creates the impression of an angel with pieces of foil paper and a torn piece of white cardboard, “Winged Angel”.

In some of the collages, Gonzalez took a great deal of effort to place the pieces. An example is the piece, “Now.”

What was not evident in the photos posted at Lincart’s website is that each collage is signed or initialed by the artist in large letters. In some cases, Gonzalez also noted the date of when he created the painting. Gonzalez is selling his collages for an average of $600. (That would buy a lot of chess sets for an elementary school.)

Several pieces have already been sold.

I’m not an art critic — some might call me a Philistine, and perhaps they’d be right — but… $600? I don’t think so.

UPDATE @ 4:58 P.M. TUESDAY: The gallery just sent me images of two of the pieces which will be part of Gonzalez’ exhibit:

Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez — chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and the Democratic Policy Committee, as well as former chairman of the Natural Resources Committee — says this about the idea of suspending the federal gas tax for three months this summer a solution to high gas prices:

“The call by Sens. Clinton and McCain to temporarily suspend the federal tax on gasoline is a short-sighted stunt that will hurt consumers and do nothing to reduce the price of gas.

“American consumers and our economy need a real solution to the energy crisis, not an empty trick. You can run cars on a lot of different fuels, but snake oil isn’t one of them.

“In the hopes of winning votes, the Senators are preying on consumers’ justified anxiety about the economy without offering a solution to their real problems. There’s nothing in our history to indicate that oil companies will pass on any savings to the consumer. So despite the McCain and Clinton gas tax holiday, the price at the pump will continue to rise and oil companies will take even more of the profit.

“My constituents are reeling from the highest gas prices in the country. But they understand that we can only break the oil chokehold and bring prices down by investing in highways and mass transit, new technology, renewable energy, and energy efficiency.

“Siphoning off the political energy from these necessary steps to focus instead on a plan that some political consultants favor is cynical politics. Taking a break from the federal gas tax and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it produces is harmful to the long-term economic well-being of our country.

“Sen. Clinton knows it is not easy to pass a windfall profits tax on oil companies. We have been trying to rein in record oil profits for years, and the House has repeatedly passed legislation to roll unjustified federal oil subsidies and invest instead in renewable energy – but President Bush and Senate Republicans have blocked us. Some of the subsidies we are trying to eliminate started under President Bill Clinton’s administration.

“Sen. Clinton is trying to intimidate members of Congress into validating her bad policy prescriptions. Congress should reject her and Sen. McCain’s idea. Relief from soaring gas prices will only come from smart investments and real change in our energy policy.”

Also, as I’d noted last week, it could cost the country hundreds of thousands of jobs. Today, I see the American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimates that number at 310,750 — including 23,107 jobs right here in California.

And for what? Check out this calculator to see how much you would save. It ain’t much… and that’s assuming most prominent economists are dead wrong when they say demand and prices would simply rise to about the same levels they’re at now.

But, hey, what do those economists know, anyway?

Will Jerry McNerney throw his superdelegate support to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama while the race is still on, or will he stay mum?

Sure, I’m picking on him a bit. He’s not the only East Bay Congressman who has not yet made the choice – Pete Stark hasn’t, either – but McNerney’s the one with the most to lose.

Stark, D-Fremont, was elected to the House in 1972 and has been there ever since; he now chairs the powerful Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. His 13th Congressional District is registered 53.6 percent Democrat, 18.5 percent Republican. In his past four re-elections, he won with 70.5 percent in 2000, 71.1 percent in 2002, 71.7 percent in 2004 and 74.9 percent in 2006 – stronger each time.

In February’s presidential primary, Democrats in Stark’s district went 57.3 percent for Clinton, 38.3 percent for Obama. But although Stark’s temper and (ahem) plain speech sometimes get him into hot water, he clearly has little to lose in endorsing either candidate.

On the other hand, McNerney, D-Pleasanton, is a freshman who’s among the National Republican Congressional Committee’s top targets for unseating this year.

In 2006 he toppled House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, in a 53.3 percent to 46.7 percent race. Pombo was beset with accusations of ethics problems, and McNerney was buoyed by a flood of grassroots activists who came in from outside the district to knock doors, work the phones, etc.

Today, McNerney’s 11th Congressional District – mostly in San Joaquin County, but with swaths of Alameda, Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties – is registered 41.3 percent Republican; 38.5 percent Democrat; and 16.6 percent decline-to-state. As of March 31, he had more campaign money in the bank – $1,153,586 – than his Republican challenger, Dean Andal – $531,817 – but the race is young and nobody expects a Stark-style cakewalk in McNerney’s district.

Democrats in McNerney’s district in February voted 54.1 percent for Clinton, 39.9 percent for Obama. McNerney in early March told the San Francisco Chronicle he would “make a decision when I have to… I’m going to let the voters decide for themselves.

Surely he has formed his own opinion by now, right? It’s hard to believe that any member of Congress hasn’t by now, after all that’s been said and done. It’s easy to believe, however, that McNerney doesn’t want to make a choice now which could put him at odds either with a majority of his district’s voters, or with the activists who helped him win that seat, or with the eventual nominee; it’s easy to believe he doesn’t want his words now to show up in Andal’s ads this fall.

But the time may be drawing nigh.

The latest Associated Press figures show Clinton still leads Obama in superdelegate endorsements (268 to 248) but Obama leads in overall delegates (pledged and the officially unpledged superdelegates), 1,736 to 1,602; a candidate needs 2,025 delegates to clinch the nomination. The superdelegate contest has gotten hot in recent days; much is being made of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew’s superdelegate defection from Clinton to Obama, yet poll numbers show Clinton resurgent.

So, Congressman McNerney – will you play it safe and wait until the nomination is a fait accompli, or will you speak out about who you believe should be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States?

The Republican National Committee launched this new Web video ad today criticizing Barack Obama for opposing the three-month “gas-tax holiday” advocated by John McCain and Hillary Clinton:

McCain wants to pay for the tax cut by shifting money from the general fund (already in deficit), while Clinton wants to take it out of the oil companies’ pockets. But no matter the bookkeeping, this RNC ad fails to mention that economists familiar with tax policy and gas prices say the plan is actually a holiday from the real world.

This gas tax supports a federal highway fund that’s already $3.4 billion in the hole. By some estimates, every dollar invested in highway infrastructre brings $5.40 in ecomomic benefits: less traffic, better safety, less vehicle maintenance spending (e.g., your shocks and struts). And the federal government says every $1 billion in highway spending creates almost 35,000 jobs; this proposed gas-tax cut would slash $9 billion from federal highway coffers, so that’s about 315,000 jobs.

On a more practical note, it probably wouldn’t lower gas prices all that much anyway. Economists say it would lead to more gas consumption, and an increase in demand will probably drive the taxless price up to near where it is with the tax now. Meanwhile, people will drive more, meaning more greenhouse gas emissions.

But, hey, don’t take my word for it.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, former chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers: “I don’t know any prominent economist who favors this McCain-Clinton proposal. More common is the reaction of a friend of mine (a veteran of the Clinton administration) who calls the idea ‘ludicrous.’ ”

Leonard Burman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute and director of the Tax Policy Center, (via Mankiw’s blog): “Yesterday I was on the NewsHour to talk about the gas tax holiday. I asked if there was another guest and the producer said, ‘We tried, but we couldn’t find anyone to argue the other side (that the gas tax holiday made sense).’ ”

Lee Schipper, an energy expert and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley (via the New York Times): “Higher demand just pushes the world price a bit higher, giving a sizable share of the tax refund to oil producers.”

Tom Firey, managing editor of the libertarian Cato Institute’s magazine Regulation (via the Cato Institute’s blog): (T)he real credit should go to Sen. Barack Obama, who has dismissed the idea entirely as a ’short-term, quick-fix’ proposal. What Obama said last week about the very small monetary gain of McCain’s call for suspending the tax also covers Clinton’s nicely: ‘A half a tank of gas — that’s [their] big idea.’ ”

Gilbert Metcalf, a Tufts University economics professor and a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (via Reuters): “I think it is a very bad idea… If we want people to invest in energy-saving cars, we need some assurance that the higher price paid for these cars is going to pay off through fuel savings… It is a very short-sighted, counterproductive proposal.”

Lawrence Goldstein, an economist at the Energy Policy Research Foundation (via the New York Times): “You don’t want to stimulate consumption… The signal you want to send is the opposite one. Politicians should say that conservation is where people’s mindset ought to be.”

Max Schulz, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment and a former senior policy advisor and speechwriting director for U.S. secretaries of energy Samuel Bodman and Spencer Abraham who helped roll out President Bush’s National Energy Policy in 2001 (via the Huffington Post): “I think it is close to political pandering… It is bad policy and political gimmickry. If you want to deliver relief to folks you have to do more than just this little holiday from the gas tax. You have to address what is driving the price of crude oil, even problems with the weak dollar. You aren’t going to win any points doing that, however. But you will get points if you get up and say let’s suspend the gas tax for a few months… I never have seen the wisdom of playing gimmicks games of the tax code.”

It seems the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — Barack Obama’s longtime family pastor — went too far in his interview with Bill Moyers that aired on PBS on Friday night and his comments Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. This clip is from a few hours ago in North Carolina:

I don’t usually use comments on past posts as the seeds of new ones, but this one’s bugging me. This comment from “Jh” came in on the post I did yesterday listing Nancy Pelosi’s and others’ comments on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Indiana’s voter identification law:

“The right to vote is a foundation of our democracy. American citizens who wish to vote must be able to do so.”…Nancy…tell that to the people in the states where YOUR party decided not to count their votes in YOUR primary

No. No, no, no. This meme of “Oh, how awful — look at the nasty Democrats disenfranchising their own voters!” is just too superficial, and can’t be allowed to pass without some dissection.

If Michigan and Florida Democrats want to blame someone for their delegates not being seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer, they need look no further than their own state capitols. National Democratic Party leaders warned both states repeatedly, for years, that bucking the party’s rules and setting primaries in January before some of the states the party chosen as bellwethers — first Iowa and New Hampshire, and now Nevada and South Carolina — meant their delegates would not be seated.

They were told plain and simple: If you break the rules, you will suffer the consequences. And they did it anyway.

In Florida, the Legislature passed a bill setting the early primary date with wide, bi-partisan margins; the same thing happened with Michigan’s bill in that state’s House, although the state Senate vote was split along party lines with the Republican majority prevailing.

And guess what? The Democratic National Committee did exactly what it warned it would do, refusing to seat the delegates.

If Michigan and Florida wanted to foment a national discussion on how the nation’s presidential primaries are run, they probably shouldn’t have mounted a kamikaze attack in an election year. A party sets rules for its own convention; you break ‘em, you lose. And if a party would buckle and not deliver the consequences it promised for a violation of the rules, every other state in the nation would look to move its own primary earlier and earlier to reap the economic benefit, political sway and media spotlight that comes with being among the earliest. It would be a free-for-all.

In fact, y’know who threatened U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. — a driving force behind Michigan’s move to an early primary — against doing exactly this in 2004? Why, it was then-DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, who detailed the heated encounter in his 2007 memoir. (There’s a slightly longer exerpt here.) Now McAuliffe is Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman — and wants Michigan’s and Florida’s delegates seated despite their transgression of the same party rules for which he fought so heatedly a few years ago.

So — without opining on the motivations behind and effects of Indiana’s voter-identification law, and the Supreme Court ruling that has affirmed it — I don’t see how that situation is akin to this. Florida and Michigan lawmakers of both parties played chicken with the DNC and lost, at their own voters’ expense. The blame lies with them, and with them alone.

The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld Indiana’s voter identification law, finding states can require photo identification without violating voters’ rights, thus validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws. Per the Washington Post, critics say the 6-3 ruling disenfranchises those least likely to have driver’s licenses or passports: the poor, elderly, disabled and city dwellers.

More than 20 states have some form of voter ID law, but Indiana’s is the strictest. This case’s record contained no evidence that the type of polling-place impersonation fraud this law was meant to pre-empt has ever occurred in Indiana, but those who wanted the law stricken had trouble identifying specific voters whose ballots were not counted because of it.

Here’s what Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, has to say about it:

“Today’s Supreme Court decision reminds us that the struggle for civil rights continues and the right to vote is still under threat.

“This decision is a big blow to all Americans -especially the poor, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities who will face tremendous obstacles in exercising the fundamental right to vote.

“Frankly, the continued push for these photo-identification laws is not at all about the integrity of the electoral process – but rather part of a tradition of voter suppression that must end.

“I am committed to defending the right to vote for every American and I will work with my colleagues to strengthen and preserve our electoral process.”

Comments from Pelosi, Feinstein et al, after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

New to my inbox, an “official statement” e-mailed on behalf of the Rev. John Hagee, an evangelical pastor from whom Republican presumptive presidential nominee John McCain said he’s proud to have an endorsement.

“As a believing Christian, I see the hand of God in everything that happens here on earth, both the blessings and the curses. But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise. No matter what the cause of the storm, my heart goes out to all who suffered in this terrible tragedy. There but for the grace of God go any one of us.”

This, of course, refers to Hagee’s contention that God punished New Orleans with the hurricane’s devestation, a claim I think he first made to National Public Radio’s Terry Gross back in September 2006. “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans,” he said. “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”

It’s a claim he repeated again this week. “What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God… In time, if New Orleans recovers and becomes the pristine city it can become, it may in time be called a blessing. But at this time it’s called a curse… It was a city that was planning a sinful conduct.”

MoveOn organized a protest of McCain’s appearance in New Orleans yesterday, and today Hagee offers this statement.

And what, exactly, does this mean? “Well, I don’t actually know what God was thinking, but I believe He believes being gay warrants divine retribution that ravages an entire region, kills more than 1,800 people, leaves thousands homeless, causes about $86 billion in damages… But hey, I feel for ya.”

Seriously? Is McCain OK with this? (Yes, that would be the same McCain who yesterday blasted the Bush Administration’s “terrible and disgraceful” response to Katrina, yet won’t give a straight answer on why he voted against emergency funding for the region as well as against giving victims access to Medicaid and unemployment benefits.)

Where’s the “straight talk?”