Join hundreds of Bay Area citizens October 28th for Day of Action to defeat Richard Pombo

on a new break, the radio showed an ad that Pombo is sponsoring, accusing McNerney of saying that he endorses the idea of North Korea making nuclear weapons.

Title: Vanpool to Defeat Pombo "Day of Action"
START DATE: Saturday October 28
TIME: 8:30 AM - 2:30 PM
Location Details:
Day of Action is in Pleasanton at Civic Park, 100 Main Street.

Van from Santa Cruz leaves from the parking lot next to the Calvary Episcopal Church, 532 Center Street, Santa Cruz, CA
Event Type: Other
Contact Name Deirdre Des Jardins
Email Address campaign (at) mbaysav.org
Phone Number (831) 423-6857
Address
DEFEAT ONE OF THE 10 WORST CONGRESSMEN IN THE COUNTRY

October 28 and November 4

Canvass in Danville, San Ramon, Dublin, and Pleasanton


Richard Pombo named #7: ENEMY OF THE EARTH by Rolling Stone Magazine

…. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Pombo has waged a career-long campaign to abolish the Endangered Species Act, which he accuses of putting "rats and shellfish" before people. Last year he almost succeeded... Pombo has also won passage of bills to eliminate habitat protections on 150 million acres of wilderness and to lift a quarter-century moratorium on offshore oil drilling.

"Dick Pombo is the most dangerous member of the House," says Carl Pope of the Sierra Club. "There's no one who represents the threat to our public lands that he does."

Pombo has turned down requests for interviews for the past month, according to NBC11's Damian Trujillo.

Trujillo said he requested an interview with Pombo and waited for a response for a full month. That response came back claiming Pombo's schedule was too tight to accommodate NBC11. Trujillo said he put in a second request and is still waiting to hear from the Congressman.

NBC11 sister-station in Sacramento has also had requests for interviews turned down by Pombo.

Jude Barry is a political consultant. He told Trujillo that Pombo is taking a mistake by not talking to the press.

Barry said, "He's taking a huge political gamble. He's making a huge political mistake. He's gotta talk to his constituents through the media."

After a candidates forum in October, Pombo slipped out the back door, avoiding the media, while McNerney stayed, shook hands, and answered any and all questions from reporters covering the event.

pombo is big oils pocket. thats where he gets all his money. hes also on a mission to destroy the environment.

Similar to Pombo, in the 4th district John Doolittle attacks the environment and rewards corporate polluters. Karen Pickett reminds us that not only was Doolittle involved in the scandal with lobbyist Jack Abranoff, Doolittle also prevented federal banking regulators from investigating Maxxam/PL CEO Charles Hurwitz for his involvement in the Texas Savings and Loan collapse that cost taxpayers billions, from where the profits were used to pay off Hurwitz's junk bond debts and engage in hostile takeover of locally operated Pacific Lumber, following the Maxxam takeover workers pensions were raided, redwood forest were clearcut and Maxxam's reign of terror continues until today unchecked. Doolittle does little else besides protect corporate criminals engaged in forest resource theft..

"Scandals Aplenty
Delay, Pombo and Hurwitz in a Gruesome Threesome"

Karen Pickett

You've no doubt been reading about the DeLay/Abramoff scandals, chuckling knowingly, wondering if this is a significant crack in the armor. For we who value justice, it is encouraging to see that the net snagging some of the slimeballs is still widening. Let's look at Representative Richard Pombo, a major player in the Abramoff scandal, who authored legislation last year to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act (see EF!J November-December 2005). That same Pombo (call him Dick if you like) convened the Headwaters Forest Task Force (HFTF) in 2000, while a prot駩 to Tom DeLay. The HFTF was part of an effort to bully banking regulators into backing off an investigation of Maxxam Corporation CEO Charles Hurwitz's crashing of the United Savings Association of Texas in 1988. That savings and loan failure, which cost US taxpayers more than $1.5 billion, was part of Hurwitz's nefarious scheme to seize Pacific Lumber (PL) in Northern California. A ripe plum of a company, PL was rich with old-growth redwood forest that had been only selectively harvested, not clearcut, for 100 years. Funds that Hurwitz liquidated from the savings and loan were essentially laundered through a firm that arranged for the junk bond financing of the PL takeover.

Because of the PL connection, the savings and loan failure caught the attention of activists, and intrepid citizen investigators uncovered Hurwitz's slimy manipulations for federal banking agencies. It ultimately caught the interest of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision, which filed claims against Hurwitz and Maxxam, charging violations including gross negligence and reckless investing. Proposals for settlement at the time included the innovative "Debt for Nature" swap idea, where Hurwitz would make good on the money he owed taxpayers through the transfer of PL assets-forest acreage that would be transferred into public hands. But this wasn't sufficient for Hurwitz and his allies.

DeLay and Pombo came galloping in to rescue their buddy Hurwitz. After scathing letters from DeLay denouncing the investigation, Pombo and California Representative John Doolittle used the HFTF's subpoena power to obtain confidential FDIC documents. The FDIC objected, and it asked the HFTF for assurances that those internal documents would not end up in Hurwitz's hands. But that is exactly what happened when Pombo and Doolittle quietly entered confidential documents into the Federal Register in 2001, shortly after the World Trade Center attacks. That was enough to damage the FDIC's case sufficiently, and the case was dropped in 2002.

But even that's not the end of the story. Hurwitz continued his counter-action against the FDIC, and against long odds, he prevailed last Summer. Judge Lynn Hughes, another right-winger from DeLay/ Bush country with ties to Hurwitz, awarded the corporate raider an incredible $72 million for having to suffer through being investigated, which "dampened Hurwitz's entrepreneurial energies." Part of the tit for tat here, of course, are the contributions Hurwitz made to these clowns. He donated not only to DeLay's campaign fund, but also to DeLay's legal defense when he was called up on money-laundering charges. Hurwitz has also slid money across the table to Pombo and Doolittle.

This story follows the Abramoff scandal pattern whereby Republican members of Congress use their posts to do "favors for funds" from corporate high rollers. The only bright spots I see on this particular horizon are the prospects of a change of ownership of California's redwoods through a probable PL bankruptcy and the fact that Pombo is up for re-election this year. It's time to unseat the scumbags.

K.P., a long-time defender of forests in Northern California, is still waiting for her check for lobbying all these years."

entire article @;
http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/articles.php?a=890

This article appeared in Volume 26 Issue 3.

Even the mainstream LA Times is aware of Doolittle's increasing depths of corruption, with each layer of scandal peeled off like onions, the tears well in our eyes that we've been decieved by this public figure for way too long a time..

This from Serrano & Braun, LA times writers;

"Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo joined forces with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to oppose an investigation by federal banking regulators into the affairs of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, documents recently obtained by The Times show. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his role in the collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers $1.6 billion.

The investigation was ultimately dropped.

The effort to help Hurwitz began in 1999 when DeLay wrote a letter to the chairman of the FDIC denouncing the investigation of Hurwitz as a "form of harassment and deceit on the part of government employees." When the FDIC persisted, Doolittle and Pombo — both considered proteges of DeLay — used their power as members of the House Resources Committee to subpoena the agency's confidential records on the case, including details of the evidence FDIC investigators had compiled on Hurwitz."

entire article @;
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-banker8jan08,0,1764103.story?coll=la-home-headlines&track=morenews

Though this author is registered Green Party, am encouraging everyone in the 4th district to vote against John Doolittle and support Democratic candidate Charles Brown (same goes for Pombo). This appears to the cynical another case of 'lesser evilism', though in this case Doolittle is considered enough of an extreme evil that even the cynical could vote against him in good conscioussness..

visit Dump Doolittle blogspot @;
http://www.solongjohn.blogspot.com/

Regarding the Dem takeover of Congress, "(Pombo losing) really is the exclamation point," said Brian Klunk, chairman of the political science department at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.

Doolittle won. But the worse of the two went down in flames.

Way to go people! Nice effort.