Results tagged “Jane Harman” from South Bay Pipeline

South Bay Reps. Jane Harman and Dana Rohrabacher have something in common these days: Both are sounding very skeptical about sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Harman returned yesterday from a trip to the region in a very pessimistic mood. Rohrabacher, who famously hung out with the mujahideen back in the 1980s, is sounding more and more like he thinks this is a lost cause.

In a recent speech on the House floor, Rohrabacher said he does not blame President Obama for taking his time to think about things. He also put much of the blame for the current situation on President Bush. He noted that while he supported the surge in Iraq, he believed the strategy was wrong:

I tried to be supportive but we were obviously doing the wrong thing. We obviously used the wrong strategy. The competence of the last administration in carrying out that war and building the peace was abysmal.

The video, as captured by Media Matters:

Rep. Jane Harman has returned from a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan with a fresh dose of what Washington calls "ground truth."

She went on Andrea Mitchell's show on MSBNC today and sounded a very pessimistic note, explicitly siding with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who has warned against sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Her bottom line: "I'm very, very skeptical that anything like the (Gen. Stanley) McChrystal recommendations make any sense in Afghanistan... I'm not for leaving Afghanistan, but what I am against ... is sending another 30,000 to 40,000 troops."

Watch the video:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says his wife, Maria Shriver, is not interested in running for governor.

This announcement comes after former Speaker Willie Brown mentioned Shriver and Jane Harman as potential Democratic candidates in his weekly column.

"Willie loves drama. Willie loves entertainment," Schwarzenegger told the Sacramento Bee's editorial board. "It fills his column, so God bless him. ... I can guarantee you that my wife has absolutely no interest in the job."

Ditto for Harman.

Keep that track record in mind when you read Brown's latest column, wherein he posits Dianne Feinstein as a potential candidate.

Though the House passed its health care reform bill last night on a 220-215 vote, it was not an entirely joyous moment for the body's liberal Democrats.

The House first passed an amendment, 240-194, that would prohibit coverage for abortion in the newly formed health insurance exchanges. Federal funding for abortion is already prohibited, and supporters of the Stupak amendment say they are merely extending that prohibition to the new health care plan.

But opponents of the amendment -- including the South Bay's three Democratic representatives, Jane Harman, Laura Richardson and Maxine Waters -- say it is a significant expansion of the Hyde amendment of 1977, and would prevent women even from spending their own money on health insurance that includes coverage for abortion.

Each South Bay Democrat voted against the Stupak amendment before voting for the full bill. (Waters cast the 218th vote for the full bill, putting it over the top.) The South Bay's lone Republican representative, Dana Rohrabacher, voted the for the Stupak amendment and against the full bill -- as did all other Republicans except one.

In a statement, Harman says she will have to reconsider her support for the health care bill if the Stupak amendment is contained in the version approved by the conference committee. Full statement after the jump.

Rep. Jane Harman has received assurances that she is not under an ethics investigation, following the disclosure last week that the House Ethics Committee looked into her wiretapped phone call.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who chairs the committee, wrote to Harman this week stating that "the Committee is not conducting an investigation regarding your conduct."

If that sounds familiar, recall that the Justice Department also sent Harman a letter in June stating that she is not the subject of a criminal inquiry into the matter.

This goes back to April, when CQ Politics published a story claiming that Harman had been taped agreeing to press for leniency in an espionage case against two former AIPAC officials in exchange for support in her bid to become chair of the Intelligence Committee. Harman has said she never intervened in the case and has called the disclosure an abuse of power.

According to a document obtained last week by the Washington Post, the Ethics Committee subpoenaed Harman's wiretapped call. The Post also reported that the Justice Department denied the request.

Recall for a moment that South Bay Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson were not initially investigated by the Ethics Committee, but rather by the semi-independent Office of Congressional Ethics. So why didn't the OCE also look into the Harman wiretapping? Who knows, but it's interesting to note that the co-chair of the OCE is Porter Goss, who has a not-insignificant role in the whole affair.

Read the full Ethics Committee letter after the jump.

Politico goes there, citing unnamed black lawmakers who see a racial disparity in the recent actions of the House Ethics Committee. South Bay Reps. Laura Richardson and Maxine Waters were referred for full investigations last week, bringing the number of black lawmakers under scrutiny to seven:

What especially galled black lawmakers was that the ethics committee voted to move forward with the Waters and Richardson probes following the OCE referrals, while Graves -- who OCE also thought should be investigated by the ethics committee -- saw his case dismissed...

"It is kind of crazy," said an aide to one senior black Democrat. "How can it be that the ethics committee only investigates African-Americans? It doesn't make sense."

Waters, who voted against the creation of the Office of Congressional Ethics, is said to particularly livid that her case was referred.

After Gavin Newsom dropped out of the governor's race last week, the search was on for Democrats who might try to impede Jerry Brown's clear path to the party's nomination.

Since this conversation is largely about money -- who has it, and who can raise it fast -- one of the names on everybody's list is South Bay Rep. Jane Harman. Harman, who ran for governor in 1998, visited the Breeze offices a couple weeks back and made it pretty clear that she has no intention of running again.

Harman is a security wonk, first and foremost, and has been focused lately on corruption in Afghanistan -- a topic that wouldn't be anywhere near the governor's portfolio. In the editorial meeting, she lamented that the office has been greatly diminished over the years as Sacramento has become more and more dysfunctional.

Nevertheless, the Great Mentioner isn't giving up so easily. Over the weekend, no less a mentioner than Former Speaker Willie Brown mentioned Harman in his weekend column.

No comment from Harmanland, so we take it that her earlier comments stand.

Also being mentioned: Dianne Feinstein, Bill Lockyer, Loretta Sanchez, Bob Hertzberg, and ... Maria Shriver?

What a day for the South Bay's representatives in Congress.

First, Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson were referred for full Ethics Committee investigations.

Now comes word that ethics investigators also looked into the wiretapping of Rep. Jane Harman. Due to a file-sharing error, the Washington Post today got its hands on a secret Ethics Committee memo that detailed investigations into more than 30 members.

Here's the part of the Post story about that document that deals with Harman:

The committee on June 9 authorized issuance of subpoenas to the Justice Department, the National Security Agency and the FBI for "certain intercepted communications" regarding Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). As was reported earlier this year, Harman was heard in a 2005 conversation agreeing to an Israeli operative's request to try to obtain leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for the agent's help in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to name her chairman of the intelligence committee. The department, a former U.S. official said, declined to respond to the subpoena.

Harman said that the ethics committee has not contacted her and that she has no knowledge that the subpoena was ever issued. "I don't believe that's true," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, this smear has been over for three years."

Harman also requested transcripts of her intercepted phone call, but did not receive a response from the Justice Department. She was informed that she was not a target of a criminal investigation.

The Harman wiretap story is complicated enough to make the allegations against Richardson and Waters look simple and straightforward by comparison.

Every time you turn around these days, there's Jane Harman talking about Afghanistan. Last Friday at the Brookings Institution, she reiterated many of her main points on the topic, but she also said this:

The question that should be put to Congress is not about troop levels. I don't think Congress right now would be very receptive -- Congress, the majority of Congress -- to a request for more troops.

That has been interpreted by some commentators to mean that Harman, typically a hawk, is personally opposed to sending more troops to Afghanistan. However, her point seems to be that regardless of the good that more troops might do, her fellow Democrats would be unlikely to support an increase -- at least right now. Instead, she said the focus should be on cleaning up corruption in the Afghan government.

In this, Harman is in line with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who signaled yesterday that the president is unlikely to send more troops until the Afghan government cleans up its act.

J Street, the new lobbying group that describes itself as "pro-peace and pro-Israel," will be holding a gala dinner next week in Washington.

Under pressure from conservatives, five members of Congress have withdrawn their names from a list of "co-hosts" of the dinner.

But Rep. Jane Harman says she won't be among them:

"I believe that different voices should be heard and that was the impetus for my lending my name to the list," Harman told The Cable, quickly adding, "That's the extent of my involvement with J Street."

She won't be attending the conference. Harman is better known as a longtime friend of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group that J Street was formed to counteract.

Jane Harman was on Andrea Mitchell's show today talking about Afghanistan. While she praised Gen. Stanley McChrystal, she also said she doesn't think now is the moment for a surge of U.S. forces:

The San Francisco Chronicle's Carla Marinucci has a blog post up speculating about a possible Jane Harman candidacy for governor.

According to Marinucci, the idea was floated at a recent fundraiser at Ron Burkle's house (where, by the way, Bill Clinton is said to have his own bedroom):

Insiders note she'd be only Democratic woman candidate -- in a party where 60 percent of the voters are women; the only candidate from either party based in Southern California -- in a state where 60 percent of the votes are cast in the region; and as the spouse of audio pioneer and philanthropist Sydney (sic) Harman, she would be the only Democratic candidate wealthy enough to write her own check.

That was the idea back in 1998, when Harman ran against Al Checchi and the under-charismaed Gray Davis. Harman was briefly ahead in that campaign, until Checchi poured millions into attack ads, in what Harman has described as a "murder suicide."

In an editorial meeting at the Breeze yesterday, Harman was asked if she might make another run at the governor's office, and said no. In her view, she said, the powers of the office have become far too constrained in the years since Pat Brown ran the place.

She was also asked whether she had an interest in some position in the Obama administration -- ambassador, perhaps? -- to which she responded that her focus is on running for reelection.

"This gig is not over," she said. "I've got my head in this game and that's what I'm focused on."

Harman also said she has not made a choice between Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown.

At her State of the Region address today, Rep. Jane Harman noted that the Senate Finance Committee had just passed its health reform bill by a vote of 14-9. (The response from the Chamber of Commerce-ish crowd, was muted with some scattered applause.)

In the speech, she explained why she broke with the Blue Dogs and supported a public option. But she goes into much greater detail in an op/ed she co-authored for the Sacramento Bee today with Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

The op/ed is after the jump.

Stop me if you've heard this one: "It's the corruption, stupid."

Over the weekend, the Washington Post solicited three-paragraph blurbs from various foreign policy experts on what should be done in Afghanistan. One of them was Jane Harman, D-South Bay, who wrote this:

It's too early to abandon a strategy focused on protecting the population and rebuilding the country, a key part of which is Afghan buy-in. We should aim to shrink our ground footprint and focus on training a growing army of willing and courageous Afghans. But without a viable partner, the strategy will fail. That's why I say: "It's the corruption, stupid."

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, is right to focus on better governance as the way to persuade Afghans to side with NATO forces against the Taliban. Major opposition candidates and tribal elders in Kandahar told me in April that the presidential election would be a sham and that people could join the Taliban rather than submit to the corruption of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's cronies. The United States has leverage to demand that the Karzai government clean up its act and submit to a partial or total recount to fix the fraudulent election. Unless and until this happens, Congress shouldn't even be asked about troop levels.

Note that Harman is not repeating her suggestion from last week that more troops be offered in exchange for progress on corruption.

Note also that the call for a recount is new.

Readers, let's hit it:

Rep. Jane Harman has apparently shifted her previous position that any new troops in Afghanistan would be citizens. In an op/ed she's penned, Harman has called for higher troop levels there if the Afghan government can deliver anti-corruption measures.

Gardena city leaders Tuesday night selected its city clerk to fill the seat vacated by Steve Bradford, now an assemblyman. Check out tomorrow's paper for more details.

A new Lomita home for domestic violence victims and their children hosts a gala to raise money in this rotten economy.

Sorry, friends, but you've gotta limit your roosters to just one in Los Angeles, thanks to a new ordinance approved Tuesday.

The man who allegedly sexually assaulted and beat a 69-year-old woman beyond recognition on a Hawthorne street last week has been charged with forcible rape and attempted murder.

A Gardena man pleaded no contest to shooting his ex-con father during an argument. How's that for a nuclear family?

For the sake of completeness, here is a recent letter to the Washington Times from Jane Harman's potential Republican challenger, Mattie Fein. Fein was responding to the Harman op/ed that appeared on Sept. 10.

The issue isn't simply the corruption ("It's the corruption, stupid!" Opinion, Thursday). It's whether the U.S. military is the instrument for ending Afghanistan's corrupt, ethnically splintered, sectarian and inept government, stupid!

Why should a single American soldier risk life and limb in Afghanistan if the defeat of the Taliban or al Qaeda there depends on an Afghan democracy that Common Cause would salute? U.S. military personnel are and should be trained for one mission and one mission only: to kill the enemy. They are not and should not be in the business of promoting clean and efficient government -- especially in Afghanistan, where weak, corrupt, tribal and despotic rule has prevailed for millenniums.

The henpecking of Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat, is akin to throwing a snowball into hell to quell the heat. If she truly believes what she wrote about Afghanistan and corruption, she would be demanding an immediate withdrawal of troops to avoid senseless American casualties.

Fein has formed an exploratory committee to look into a run against Harman next year.

In a voicemail, Jane Harman takes issue with my characterization of her op/ed in today's Financial Times:

The op/ed with Michael O'Hanlon is about corruption. It's not about troop levels. And my position, which I have said publicly, is that I am hopeful that any additional troops required in Afghanistan will be Afghan troops, and that that will be possible once the Afghans have confidence that their government will deliver services.

The Harman-O'Hanlon piece suggests increasing U.S. troop levels on the condition that anti-corruption measures are taken. That's a distinct message from the one Harman delivered in the Washington Times last week, when she argued (writing solo) that it's premature to talk about U.S. troop increases.

Congress should not even be asked about more troops without first being shown evidence that some anti-corruption metrics have been achieved, not just announced.

Success in Afghanistan is essential; the United States has invested too many troops and too much treasure to fail. But raising troop levels is the wrong place to start the discussion of how to move forward. Better governance is the right place. That way the additional troops will be Afghans. It is their fight, and they should constitute the overwhelming majority of the forces fighting to protect their country.

Harman's position may have shifted since last week -- she would say it hasn't -- or today's op/ed may merely be reflective of O'Hanlon's more hawkish influence.

Marcy Winograd, who is challenging Jane Harman for the Democratic nomination, just put out her own statement on Afghanistan:

We all want to feel safe and secure, and know that our taxpayer dollars are not being wasted on perpetual wars that create new enemies. For these reasons, we must work for an exit strategy from Afghanistan and bring our troops home...

Some say we cannot afford to leave Afghanistan. In fact, my opponent argues we must eradicate corruption there because -- "... the United States has invested too many troops and too much treasure to fail." I say -- We cannot afford to stay in Afghanistan because we will bankrupt our country.

War and occupation breed corruption, so a policy of escalation in Afghanistan is at cross-purposes. If we really want to eradicate corruption in Afghanistan, then we should invest in humanitarian aid, not weapons that will kill innocent people and create more hatred toward us. Let us build schools, hospitals and houses -- not as an occupying power -- but as a global partner interested in shared prosperity and global stability.

Rep. Jane Harman has an op/ed in the Financial Times today, in which she and co-author Michael O'Hanlon suggest conditioning troop increases in Afghanistan on the Karzai government's willingness to pursue anti-corruption measures:

But we need to find a way to benefit from this moment of maximum US leverage. Barack Obama, US president, can tell Mr Karzai that Congress, facing $1,000bn (€677bn, $611bn) deficits and an American public souring on the war, will not fund additional troop deployments until it sees Afghans doing their part. This is a credible good-cop/bad-cop message that Mr Karzai, assuming he is ultimately re-elected, will ignore at his peril.

Afghanistan has moved onto the front burner since the publication of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment that without more troops, the mission will fail.

To get a sense of where O'Hanlon is coming from on this, check out his July op/ed calling for more troops in Afghanistan; his argument that Afghanistan is no Iraq; and his op/ed downplaying the challenges there. 

Today's op/ed is behind a pay wall, but you can read the whole thing after the jump.