This Is What A Progressive Looks Like

As I have previously written, you won't find a better progressive candidate for Congress than Norman Solomon, who is running for a seat from the newly drawn Second Congressional District in California.
 

Solomon is one of a handful of Democrats who unequivocally supports Occupy Wall Street, stating, "We need democracy, not “corporatocracy.”

In a recent article, he made clear that his campaign is "very much in sync" with the Occupy movement.  The issues that have been at the core of his campaign and that he has emphasized for years "are part of the OWS focus - Wall Street's undemocratic power, the widening disparities between the rich and the rest of us, the need to eject corporate money from politics."

Solomon has just released his "Economic Agenda for Main Street" which pretty much mirrors a wish list for progressives:  (1) create new green jobs; (2) invest in our workers and communities;  (3)  stand up for workers, not Wall Street; (4) protect Social Security and Medicare; and (5) quality health care for all.

Here are the details:

Create New Green Jobs

• Jobs and sustainability must go hand in hand. As co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay, I organized public hearings and heard testimony that repeatedly debunked the false choice between jobs and the environment. By bringing together labor, entrepreneurs and environmental leaders, I saw the potential of good green jobs to provide high-quality employment while safeguarding the environment.
• I support major federal investment to create jobs that expand green technologies such as rooftop solar, well-sited wind and tidal energy production.
• By expanding conservation efforts, we can create jobs programs that directly fund retrofitting and weatherization for homes, schools and other buildings.
• We need large-scale government investment in public transportation – to create vast numbers of new jobs, reduce greenhouse gases and ease traffic gridlock.

Invest in Our Workers and Communities

• We must reinvest in America’s workers and families, to rebuild our economy and our social fabric. I support robust public investment in economic programs that create living-wage jobs. The government should invest directly in the nation’s infrastructure, and in social services that help stabilize our communities.
• I support policies that strengthen small businesses and protect them from the predatory practices of big box stores and other corporate chains which stifle competition and erode the local tax base. Small businesses are key engines for job creation and a core part of local economies.
• I will defend federal housing programs that help cities and counties invest in new affordable housing, create opportunities for first-time homebuyers, and reduce homelessness at the local level.
• I strongly support H.R. 870 – the “Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act” – introduced by Congressman John Conyers, which provides for a federal policy of full employment. With a one-quarter of 1 percent transaction tax on Wall Street, the bill would generate roughly $150 billion per year in revenues, creating millions of new jobs.

Stand Up for Workers — Not Wall Street

• I will never hesitate to stand up to corporate lobbyists and Wall Street in defense of working Americans, the unemployed and under-employed.
• In the early 1990s, I publicly opposed NAFTA before it was enacted. Widespread evidence shows that NAFTA and other international "free trade" deals have hurt American workers, undermining job security and wages, and should be renegotiated to protect the U.S. economy and the environment.
• I publicly opposed the Wall Street banks bailout before it was enacted in October 2008. Rather than subsidizing big investors and rewarding corporate executives for destroying jobs, the federal government should be creating jobs and protecting homeowners from predatory foreclosures.
• I support passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. This measure is vital to restoring workers’ fundamental rights, and will help improve wages and healthcare for all American workers. I support a national living wage and a worker’s right to collective bargaining. All workers should be treated with dignity and respect.

Protect Social Security and Medicare

• I will fight to protect – and strengthen – Social Security for current and future beneficiaries. I support Sen. Bernie Sanders' bill to protect Social Security from the budget ax in the so-called congressional Super Committee.
• We must defend Social Security’s cost-of-living allowance.
• Contrary to myth, Social Security is solvent – and we must stand firm against cuts and privatization schemes that would “fix” what isn’t broken.
• I will unequivocally oppose all efforts to raise the eligibility age for Medicare.
• I will push for reform of Medicare Part D to reduce the costs of drugs while reining in runaway profits of huge pharmaceutical companies.

Quality Health Care for All

• I support single payer health care, also known as enhanced Medicare for all.
• The fact that the U.S. spends more on health care than most industrialized nations is a reflection of the unhealthy power of the insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical industries. Our current system does not serve Americans equitably; it must be reformed and improved.
• I will fight to protect and bolster Medicare and Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California.
• I support expanded federal funding for Federally Qualified Health Centers.
• I will fight to ensure that every community has access to quality health care services.

 Click on the Solomon tag below to read more about Norman's campaign, and click here to join or contribute as long as you are not a corporate PAC.

Norman Solomon Is The Real Deal

As I have previously written, you won't find a better progressive candidate for Congress than Norman Solomon, who is running for a seat from the newly drawn North Coast, California district.

Solomon unequivocally supports the Occupy Wall Street movement, and says, "We need democracy, not “corporatocracy.”

In a recent article published in the Marin Independent Journal, Solomon finds it "appalling that the national government continues to dodge the dire need for massive federal jobs programs."  As a candidate for Congress, he is "committed to the goal of full employment" and is "determined to fight for it."

Trickle-down job creation is a failure. Many of the nation's largest corporations keep sitting on vast quantities of cash — with Wall Street's giants often posting record profits — while failing to hire Americans who are desperate for work.  The idea that big business needs even bigger tax breaks to get the country working again is grimly laughable.

Solomon suggests that to "see clear, beyond the current morass," we should look to the Great Depression, when "the federal government was ready,willing and able to take responsibility."

The New Deal — made possible by strong social movements, a willing Congress and a visionary in President Franklin D. Roosevelt — swept aside the nonsense of rigid ideologies. When business couldn't put the country back to work, the government

Once again, as Solomon says, "our country is crying out for such rededication of public resources for the common good," with a virtually endless list of of "unrealized potential," including "potholes, roads and bridges in need of repair; distressed lands, marshes, rivers and shores in need of eco-restoration; public schools in need of retrofitting, classroom supplies and more teachers; millions of roofs awaiting solar panels."

We need, in short, a new New Deal — creating many millions of good jobs while implementing what we've learned about the imperatives of green sustainability.
Most Americans grew to love the New Deal. Why? Because it worked. And it put the country back to work.
Then, as now, the deficit hawks circled, squawked and demanded that such "big government" spending be slashed. When they succeeded midway through the 1930s, the country went into a double-dip depression.
Today's deficit hawks are dragging our country away from the imperative of robust federal spending to create a wide range of good green jobs for Americans. Now, while Wall Street prospers, Main Street suffers —and so do countless American families, reeling from the grim effects of chronic unemployment.

That is why, as Solomon says, "we need a new New Deal."  And that is why we need progressives like Norman Solomon in Congress.

I wrote in a prior post that Solomon refuses to take corporate PAC money.  Still, due to the strength of his progressive, grassroots efforts, his campaign surpassed $220,000 in fundraising last month.  As Solomon puts it, however, "especially because we've ruled out donations from corporate fat cats and plutocrats, our need for grassroots fundraising is continuous."  As long as you're not a corporate PAC, you can make a donation by clicking here.

We Need Both: Angry Protesters and Progressive Candidates

I have previously argued that we must elect more progressives to Congress, people like Elizabeth Warren and Norman Solomon.  Of course, as David Atkins argues, this is a necessary but not sufficient condition "for creating real change in this country."

In order for change to take place, good Democrats do need to be in power. But only an angry and motivated populace angry with both Parties and strongly intent on holding Democrats accountable will scare and motivate Democrats enough to do what they were elected to do.

Occupy Wall Street seems to have galvanized that anger.  Protests are catching on all over the country.  Not surprisingly, attention is paid to some of the outliers (like the guy who wants Andrew Jackson removed from the $20 bill) and the burgeoning movement has been criticized for failing to articulate concrete goals.

But as Betsy Reed wrote in The Nation:

[S]ometimes, you also need a spark. “Occupy Wall Street,” as an idea and an action, is a stroke of brilliance. It’s not poll-tested or focus-grouped, but it expresses perfectly the outrage that is the appropriate response to the maddening political situation we find ourselves in today. It succeeds as symbolic politics: taking back the square is just what we need to do.

And when protesters do provide a clear and coherent message, like Jesse LaGreca does below, it ends up on the cutting room floor because it doesn't fit the media narrative (especially the Fox News narrative).



Chris Bowers has started a resource page for information about Occupy solidarity events around the country.   And Act Blue (click the badge on the right side of this blog) is the place to go to support progressive candidates for Congress.

Solomon's Principled Stand On Campaign Finance

As Democrats begin to panic over President Obama's re-election prospects, it is important that we don't limit ourselves to ensuring the Republicans don't capture the presidency.  What has become clear since 2008, is that we need to elect more progressives in Congress no matter who is president.  And you won't find a better progressive candidate for Congress than Norman Solomon, who is running for a seat from the newly drawn North Coast, California district.  Solomon, paraphrasing Paul Wellstone's famous comment about representing the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, says that he will represent the progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus.  Please share this post widely.  Click on the Solomon tag below to read more about Norman's campaign, and click here to join or contribute as long as you are not a corporate PAC.

Solomon Will Not Accept Corporate PAC Money

Originally published at solomonforcongress.com

Congressional candidate Norman Solomon announced today (Sept. 6) that he will not accept any corporate PAC money in his campaign for the open seat in California's new North Coast district, which extends from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border.

Solomon, a progressive Democrat who is campaigning this week in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, said that lofty rhetoric about the need for campaign finance reform must be matched by action. "Huge corporations seeking to fatten their profit margins are using Political Action Committees to pressure and sway members of Congress," he said. "I don't want their money. I want to be accountable to voters, not Wall Street."

Taking the unusual step of pledging not to accept a single campaign contribution from a corporate PAC, Solomon declared: "We're not supposed to have government of, by and for the large corporations -- or Wall Street. Many of the biggest companies are posting record profits while many millions of Americans are out of work. Home foreclosures are sky-high, schools are losing teachers, retirement security is in jeopardy. This is completely unacceptable."

Solomon, who was elected as an Obama delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, is an outspoken foe of what he calls "undue deference to Wall Street" in Washington.
"Political rhetoric about 'shared sacrifice' rings hollow when the vast majority of us are being sacrificed to the financial benefit of big banks and large corporations," Solomon said. He charged that "Congress has acted in the financial interests of the rich instead of the public."

Solomon said that his campaign for Congress in the new coastal district is leading the race in several key ways -- including "the most volunteers, the first door-to-door canvassing, the most house parties and the largest number of individual contributors." He added: "We don't rely on big donors. Our campaign's momentum is propelled by wide and deep grassroots support."

How It's Supposed To Be Done

"Compromise is one thing, but capitulation is another — especially when core principles of decency and fairness are at stake."   Norman Solomon

You won't find a better progressive candidate for Congress than Norman Solomon, who is running for a seat from the newly drawn North Coast, California district.  Solomon, paraphrasing Paul Wellstone's famous comment about representing the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, says that he will represent the progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus.

In a previous piece, Solomon talked convincingly about "building coalitions to fight for a wide-ranging progressive agenda — including guaranteed health care, full employment, workers' rights, green sustainability, full funding for public education, fundamental changes in federal spending priorities, and an end to perennial war."

In his new article about the economy, below, Solomon provides a refreshingly stark contrast to the "bipartisan dealmakers in Washington [who] are slashing the safety net that's essential for vast numbers of Americans."  He explains ways to reduce the deficit without gutting social programs or undermining Medicare and Social Security, while rightly arguing that the top priority in Washington must be job creation.  But, as Solomon says, this "won't happen by continuing to give tax cuts to the wealthy while imposing benefit cuts on the rest of us." 

Here is yet another demonstration of what a powerful, progressive voice he would bring to Washington; a voice that is so badly needed.  (Click on the Fair and Unbalanced "Solomon" tag for more evidence.)  Please share this and his other posts widely, and click here to join, contribute to, or learn more about Norman Solomon's campaign.
-- Lovechilde

Democrats Must Push Back

By Norman Solomon, originally published as an op-ed in the Marin Independent Journal

The negative trends  in the Nation's Capital are mostly due to extreme GOP ideologues in Congress. But they've been enabled by too many Democrats who keep giving ground while Republican leaders refuse to give an inch.

Many a political truth can be spoken in jest, and that was the case with a mock news item that appeared in The Onion last week.

A day after signing legislation that raised the government debt ceiling and authorized steep budget cuts," the satirical magazine reported, "President Obama thanked Democrats as well as Democrats for their willingness to make tough, but necessary, concessions during negotiations."

The Onion went on: "Obama added that while it may look ugly at times, politics is about Democrats giving up what they want, as well as Democrats giving up what they want, until an agreement can ultimately be reached."

Compromise is one thing, but capitulation is another — especially when core principles of decency and fairness are at stake.

We must stand our ground on behalf of seniors, children, the disabled and other vulnerable Americans. All the rhetoric about "shared sacrifice" rings hollow when the vast majority of us are being sacrificed to the financial benefit of big banks and large corporations.

There are plenty of sensible and effective ways to reduce the deficit — including a transaction tax on Wall Street, closure of tax loopholes for big companies,  an end to the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy and a major reduction in the military budget.Instead, the bipartisan dealmakers in Washington are slashing the safety net that's essential for vast numbers of Americans.

One of the most dangerous aspects of the recent budget deal is that it explicitly sets the stage for future actions to undermine Medicare. This scenario strikes at the heart of precious values. I'm committed to defending Social Security and Medicare on the campaign trail and as a member of Congress.

I fully agree with Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's explanation for why she voted against the new budget deal.

Woolsey pointed out that the deal "puts virtually the entire burden on working families and the middle class while asking nothing from billionaires, millionaires and companies that send jobs overseas."
In Washington, job one should be creating jobs. And that won't happen by continuing to give tax cuts to the wealthy while imposing benefit cuts on the rest of us.

Corporations are sitting on huge quantities of cash. But rather than expanding the workforce, they're hoarding the money — and stretching workers in the name of "productivity" — while often posting record profits.

Three years ago, on this page, I wrote a column opposing the Wall Street bank bailout then being debated in Congress. Unfortunately, my concerns were borne out by later events.

Banks took the bailout money and largely used it to buy other banks — instead of making loans to small businesses and helping homeowners keep their homes.

With the new budget deal, Congress again acted in the financial interests of the rich instead of the vast majority of us.

With chronic unemployment at historic highs and personal savings in the tank, fewer and fewer Americans have the buying power that can pull the economy out of its deep ravine.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in the vital lessons of the New Deal. Many millions of good jobs must be created — and that will require well-funded federal jobs programs on a large scale.

Trickle-down economics, relying on the tender mercies of powerful corporations, won't get it done.

And, Uh, What About FISCAL Stimulus?

By Norman Solomon, originally published at Daily Kos, July 13, 2011.

Norman Solomon will represent the
progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus

I'm glad that Ben Bernanke said today that the Federal Reserve may take some stimulus measures. Late, but at least he's talking about it.

Along Pennsylvania Avenue, though, the silence is disconcerting -- while unemployment festers, worsening and doing daily damage to lives across the country.

Writing as a candidate in a San Francisco Bay Guardian piece last week, I emphasized that the power of Wall Street to limit legislative possibilities must be challenged.

As a member of Congress, I want to work on building coalitions to fight for a wide-ranging progressive agenda — including guaranteed health care, full employment, workers' rights, green sustainability, full funding for public education, fundamental changes in federal spending priorities, and an end to perennial war.

The business of legislators should not be business -- it should be democratic representation of the public interest. And that has to include taking seriously the quest for full employment. To accept vast numbers of jobless people is to accept the unacceptable.

[Norman Solomon is running for Congress in Marin-Sonoma County, California.  He has agreed to let Fair and Unbalanced cross-post his writings which, as you can see, demonstrate what a powerful, progressive voice he would bring to Washington; a voice that is so badly needed.  Please share these posts widely, and click here to contribute to his campaign]

Politics As The Art Of The Imperative

Norman Solomon

I recently wrote about channeling our frustration with the President and the Democrats into supporting progressive organizations like Rebuild the Dream and ensuring the election of more progressives to Congress. 

You won't find a better progressive candidate than Norman Solomon who is running for the Marin-Sonoma County seat vacated by another true progressive, Lynn Woolsey.  Solomon, paraphrasing Paul Wellstone's famous comment about representing the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, says that he will represent the progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus.

In a recent article in the Bay Guardian, Solomon contrasts his grassroots campaign with the Astroturf campaign being run by his corporate-funded Democrat opponents.

What Solomon has in mind is "building coalitions to fight for a wide-ranging progressive agenda — including guaranteed health care, full employment, workers' rights, green sustainability, full funding for public education, fundamental changes in federal spending priorities, and an end to perennial war."

Once elected he will "insist that we need to bring our troops and tax dollars home — and that caving in to Wall Street and polluters and enemies of civil liberties is unacceptable."  As he has previously written, Solomon believes that California's two nuclear power plants should be shut down and he will "fight for serious public investment in renewable energy, conservation, and a nuclear-free future."

Solomon argues that "the narrow definition of politics as 'the art of the possible' has led to disaster. What we need is the art of the imperative."

Already, more than 750 people have made donations to Solomon's campaign (which topped $100,000 weeks ago), and nearly 300 have signed up as volunteers. Please join at www.SolomonForCongress.com.

[Related posts: Shutting Down California's Nukes; The Search For War]

The Search For War

By Norman Solomon, originally published at Huffington Post, May 26, 2011.

[Norman Solomon has been a true progressive voice on politics and the media.  He has written books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2005), and for many years penned a nationally syndicated "Media Beat" column. He has also been a North Bay political activist, most recently as a leader of the region’s Green New Deal commission and the national Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.  Now he is running for Rep. Lynn Woolsey's Marin-Sonoma County seat in Congress.  Solomon, paraphrasing Paul Wellstone's famous comment about representing the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, says that he will represent the progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus.  He has already been endorsed by Blue America, and you can donate to his campaign by clicking the Blue America badge on the right panel of this blog.  You can also learn more about Norman and his campaign here.]

In times of war, U.S. presidents have often talked about yearning for peace. But the last decade has brought a gradual shift in the rhetorical zeitgeist while a tacit assumption has taken hold -- war must go on, one way or another.

"I am continuing and I am increasing the search for every possible path to peace," Lyndon Johnson said while escalating the Vietnam War. In early 1991, the first President Bush offered the public this convolution: "Even as planes of the multinational forces attack Iraq, I prefer to think of peace, not war." More than a decade later, George W. Bush told a joint session of Congress: "We seek peace. We strive for peace."

While absurdly hypocritical, such claims mouthed the idea that the USA need not be at war 24/7/365.

But these days, peace gets less oratorical juice. In this era, after all, the amorphous foe known as "terror" will never surrender.

There's an intractable enemy for you; beatable but never quite defeatable. Terrorists are bound to keep popping up somewhere.

A permanent war psychology has dug a groove alongside the permanent war economy. And so, we hear appreciably less about Washington's ostensible quest for peace.


Right now, we're told, President Obama is wrestling with the question of how much to reduce U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. It's a fateful decision, and we should pressure members of Congress and the White House, pushing for military withdrawal and an end to the air war.

But, just as the reduction of U.S. troop strength in Iraq allowed for escalation in Afghanistan, a search for enemies is apt to be inexhaustible. When Uncle Sam's proclaimed global mission is to prevent other countries from being used as a base for a terrorist attack on the United States, the Pentagon's combat tasks are bottomless.

Whether or not the "war on terror" buzz phrase gets official use, the tacit assumption of war without end is now the old normal, again renewed in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death. Every day, the warfare wallpaper inside the mass-media echo chamber is a bit more familiar, blurring the public vision into more drowsy acceptance of perpetual war.

Years ago, U.S. military spending climbed above $2 billion per day. Some of the consequences can be understood in the context of words that President Dwight Eisenhower uttered in April 1953, during a speech that began by addressing "the chance for a just peace for all peoples" and ended with the word "peace."

In the speech, Eisenhower declared: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. ... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Maybe, as a former commanding general, Ike felt some freedom to talk like that. But in the current era, trapped within the "war on terror" matrix, Washington's political framework leaves very little space for serious talk of peace.

When war ("on terror") is touted as the embodiment of eternal vigilance, war must be eternal -- and in that case, why bother to talk much about striving for peace?

So, peace might be a good goal to recommend to some others -- but if the United States is terrorism's biggest target and most powerful foe, then this country is the last place that should expect, or seek, peace.

In the process, the warfare state pins a multitude of hopes on war -- with a perverse acculturated faith that it will right wrongs, avenge cruelty, straighten the crooked, cleanse the fetid, prevent violence. Countless times, those delusional hopes have boosted the spirals of suffering. But who's counting?

In one of Kabul's poorest neighborhoods, when I spoke with a group of about 20 very poor women in the late summer of 2009, I asked what they needed most of all. Their unanimous response translated as one word: "peace."

But at the top of Washington's hierarchy, the yearning is very different. The nation's decade-long war effort in Afghanistan, where it costs $1 million to deploy one U.S. soldier for one year, is a grisly symptom of chronic war fever. More enemies are easy to find, and even easier to make.

A country that's committed to being at war will treat the real potential for peace as an abstraction.

Norman Solomon is the author of a dozen books including "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" and "Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State" He lives in Northern California, where he is a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives (www.SolomonForCongress.com).

Shutting Down California Nukes

Norman Solomon has been a true progressive voice on politics and the media.  He has written books, including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (2005), and for many years penned a nationally syndicated "Media Beat" column. He has also been a North Bay political activist, most recently as a leader of the region’s Green New Deal commission and the national Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.  Now he is running for Rep. Lynn Woolsey's Marin-Sonoma County seat in Congress.  Solomon, paraphrasing Paul Wellstone's famous comment about representing the democratic wing of the Democratic Party, says that he will represent the progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus.  He has already been endorsed by Blue America, and you can donate to his campaign by clicking the Blue America badge on the right panel of the blog.  You can also learn more about Norman and his campaign here.  Below is his latest article on the importance of closing nuclear power plants in California, which he has allowed me to cross-post here.  As Howie Klein points out, this piece will not endear him to the utility companies that are funding the so-called liberals running against him for the nomination.

It's Time To Close California's Nuclear Power Plants

by Norman Solomon, originally published on Huffington Post, April 28, 2011 

The facts all point to this "inconvenient truth" -- the time has come to shut down California's two nuclear power plants as part of a swift transition to an energy policy focused on clean and green renewable sources and conservation.

The Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo and the San Onofre plant on the southern California coast are vulnerable to meltdowns from earthquakes and threaten both residents and the environment.

Reactor safety is just one of the concerns. Each nuclear power plant creates radioactive waste that will remain deadly for thousands of years. This is not the kind of legacy that we should leave for future generations.



In the wake of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, we need a basic rethinking of the USA's nuclear energy use and oversight. There is no more technologically advanced country in the world than Japan. Nuclear power isn't safe there, and it isn't safe anywhere.

The perils to people are clear. In a recent letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein noted that "roughly 424,000 live within 50 miles of the Diablo Canyon and 7.4 million live within 50 miles of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station."

As someone who was an Obama delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, I believe it would be a tragic mistake for anyone to loyally accept the administration's nuclear policy. The White House is fundamentally mistaken in its efforts to triple the budgeting of federal loan guarantees for the domestic nuclear power industry, from $18 billion to $54 billion.

Our tax dollars should not be used to subsidize the nuclear power industry. Instead, we should be investing far more in solar, wind and other renewable sources, along with serious energy conservation.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a nuclear-friendly fox guarding the radioactive chicken coop. The federal government has no business promoting this dangerous industry while safe and sustainable energy resources are readily available.

The fact that federal law imposes a liability cap of about $12 billion on a nuclear power accident is a reflection of the fact that those plants are uninsurable on the open market.

As a candidate for Congress in the district that includes Marin and Sonoma counties, I intend to make this a major campaign issue. It remains to be seen whether my one declared opponent, Assemblyman Jared Huffman, will join me in urging a rapid timetable for the closure of California's nuclear power plants.

Huffman has ties to California's nuclear-invested utility PG&E. Between 2007 and 2009, according to campaign finance data compiled by nonpartisan Maplight.org, he received $11,100 from PG&E, which owns and operates the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

While Huffman and other state lawmakers in February signed a letter to a federal commission on America's nuclear future citing seismic "concerns which deserve to be more closely examined," the time for equivocation on nuclear power is long past. We don't need yet more study on whether to operate nuclear plants on fault lines.

People want bold and responsible leadership as we face up to the well-documented realities of nuclear power on this fragile planet.