Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, the state's high court on Thursday said a would-be Good Samaritan accused of rendering her friend paraplegic by pulling her from a wrecked car "like a rag doll" can be sued.
California's Supreme Court ruled that the state's Good Samaritan law only protects people from liability if the are administering emergency medical care, and that Lisa Torti's attempted rescue of her friend didn't qualify.

Justice Carlos Moreno wrote for a unanimous court that a person is not obligated to come to someone's aid.

"If, however, a person elects to come to someone's aid, he or she has a duty to exercise due care," he wrote.
++++++
Flap smellls a recall of the California Supreme Court brewing. Waht a ridiculous decision.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he will not sign a package of bills Democrats sent him today to increase taxes and make program cuts, an $18 billion effort passed without Republican votes.

The governor said the package did not include provisions to stimulate the economy by loosening environmental standards, making more use of contractors on public projects and give him flexibility to furlough state workers without union intervention.

Republicans claimed the Democratic package was illegal because it raised $9.3 billion in taxes without a two-thirds vote. But Schwarzenegger did not criticize that approach.

Reporting from Sacramento — Sidelining the Legislature's minority Republicans, Democratic lawmakers today passed an $18-billion plan to ease the state's financial crisis through higher gas, sales and income taxes and cuts to schools and healthcare.

But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would veto the package, saying it did not go as far as he wanted to stimulate the economy.
+++++++
Arnold is vetoing the measure for the wrong reasons. But, Flap will take it.

Gavin Newsom held his second town hall-style meeting of his campaign for governor Tuesday night, this time fielding questions from Santa Rosa residents.
Many of their inquiries had to do with local issues. But then came the no-brainer question: Mr. Mayor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been nominated as chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a promotion that almost definitely takes her out of the governor's race. Care to comment?

"Yes, she is, thank you and goodnight," Newsom said with a grin. The room burst into laughter and applause. (You can't say the mayor doesn't know how to work a crowd.)

In all seriousness, Newsom told the audience, he'd be very surprised if Feinstein decided to run, given the power associated with the Intelligence Committee job.
+++++++
Flap bets Jerry Brown is relieved as well – damn relieved.

Reporters Jump All Over Mostly Silent Princess Of Camelot; Mayor Of Syracuse Doesn't Offer Endorsement
Who Should Get Senate Gig? Siena Poll: Cuomo 26, Kennedy 23
+++++++
Caroline has it in the bag. Cuomo will run for Governor as Paterson steps down.

California may soon have more bankrupt towns on its hands.

The city of Vallejo, Calif., gained national attention earlier this year by filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Now, two neighbors are fighting to avoid the same fate, as the state's economic crisis spreads.

Isleton and Rio Vista, small towns roughly 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, say they have begun consulting with bankruptcy lawyers as they draw up plans to deal with their mounting budget crises. The towns' leaders say they hope to avoid bankruptcy, but concede the move may eventually be their only option.
++++++
Where is Arnold?

A new military plan for troop withdrawals from Iraq that was described in broad terms this week to President-elect Barack Obama falls short of the 16-month timetable Mr. Obama outlined during his election campaign, United States military officials said Wednesday.
The plan was proposed by the top American commanders responsible for Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, and it represents their first recommendation on troop withdrawals under an Obama presidency. While Mr. Obama has said he will seek advice from his commanders, their resistance to a faster drawdown could present the new president with a tough political choice between overruling his generals or backing away from his goal.
++++++
Want to be Obama stays with their recommendtions?

Elián González could play a role in next month's confirmation hearings for Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general.

Last week, eight Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee fired off letters to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Ark., and Attorney General Michael Mukasey seeking any documents prepared by Eric Holder or his staff on a variety of Clinton-era controversies, including “the April 22, 2000, raid in Miami, Florida, by Border Patrol agents to take Elián Gonzalez into custody.''

Holder served as deputy attorney general during the raid in Miami. His role as an Obama presidential campaign advisor prompted a small contingent of Cuban exiles to protest outside Obama's speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami in June.

Attorney General-designate Eric H. Holder Jr. told Congress under oath that he had "only a passing familiarity" with the criminal case against billionaire Marc Rich before President Clinton pardoned the fugitive financier in 2001- testimony that is now raising concerns among lawmakers reviewing Mr. Holder's nomination.

Correspondence with the Justice Department and testimony secured by Congress from other witnesses show that 15 months before the pardon, Mr. Holder met privately with Mr. Rich's attorney and received a presentation about what Mr. Rich's defense believed were flaws in the government's case.

Rick Warren, conservative author of “The Purpose Driven Life” book series and pastor at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Cal., will deliver the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration next month. This is change?

Warren, outspoken proponent of California’s Proposition 8, is James Dobson masquerading as a moderate. A writer for The Nation observed the following after a 2005 interview with Warren: “Lamenting the ‘tyranny of activist judges,’ who obstruct the will of the majority, he evinces no understanding of minority rights or the judiciary's role in enforcing them. Explaining his views about homosexuality and gay rights, he notes, ‘I don't think that homosexuality is the worst sin,’ and, ‘By the way, my wife and I had dinner at a gay couple's home two weeks ago. So I'm not [a] homophobic guy, okay?’

Barack Obama’s choice of a prominent evangelical minister to perform the invocation at his inauguration is a conciliatory gesture toward social conservatives who opposed him in November, but it is drawing fierce challenges from a gay rights movement that – in the wake of a gay marriage ban in California – is looking for a fight.
++++++
Will gay leaders protest? Boycott Obama?

An attorney for Rod Blagojevich says the embattled Illinois governor will not appoint someone to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

Attorney Ed Genson says Senate leaders have already said they won't accept an appointment by Blagojevich, so there's no reason for the Democratic governor to select someone.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger answered a question today about whether he might support the majority-vote package being crafted by legislative Democrats today to balance the budget.

Just don't look for an answer in his answer.

"We'll look into that," Schwarzenegger said.

Later, Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear added, "As the governor has said, we need a balanced proposal. That includes legitimate cuts, real revenues and economic stimulus, including public-private partnerships and design-build," referring to public contracting methods. "If their proposal does not include these element, tonight's vote will be nothing more than a drill."

To call the Democrats' latest tax package complex would be an understatement.

California law requires a two-thirds vote to increase taxes — meaning Republican support is necessary. But Democrats are making an end-run around the GOP with this latest package, which the Legislature will vote on later today, in a number of ways.

Democratic state lawmakers today unveiled a new package of $18 billion in budget fixes that include more than $9 billion in new general fund revenue to be raised with a simple majority vote, avoiding the need for Republican support.

Democratic legislative leaders have cobbled together an $18 billion package of budget cuts and tax increases that they contend can be passed today by a simple-majority vote.

The maneuver, if passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, could soften the impacts of the state's decision this morning to halt funds for thousand of public works projects statewide.

The complicated new budget-cutting proposal comes after weeks of tense negotiations between Democrats and Republicans on bridging a projected $40 billion shortfall over 18 months.

"We're committed to getting the job done with or without our Republican colleagues," Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said.

Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg plan to vote tonight on the proposal, crafted secretly behind the scenes and unveiled Wednesday.

Democratic legislative leaders are planning to use a series of complex legal maneuvers to raise Californians' gas, sales and income taxes over the objection of Republican lawmakers, who have been able to block such proposals in the past.

Under the Democrats' plan, sales taxes would increase by three-fourths of a cent. Gas taxes would go up by 13.5 cents per gallon. And a surcharge of 2.5% would be added to income taxes.

In three brief orders, less than one page in length, and without explanation, the Illinois Supreme Court today rejected calls that it temporarily remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.

The court today turned down a request, filed last week by the state's attorney general. She urged the court to temporarily remove Blagojevich from the governor's office and put the lieutenant governor in charge.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan acted under a section of the state constitution that gives Illinois Supreme Court the power to declare a governor unfit to serve. She urged the court to take the case and act quickly, "in light of these extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances."
+++++++
Fitz better indict Blago soon, if he can!

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is warning that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it could try to attack the United States.

Barak said the world should press Iran to stop it from building nuclear weapons.

He spoke at a conference of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. He said, "If it built even a primitive nuclear weapon like the type that destroyed Hiroshima, Iran would not hesitate to load it on a ship, arm it with a detonator operated by GPS and sail it into a vital port on the east coast of North America."

His name is Robert Cooley.

Cooley was a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago in the late 1980's who became one of the most potent witnesses against Chicago corruption, testifying for federal prosecutors in cases that resulted in dozens of convictions.

Cooley says that before Rod Blagojevich got into politics he was a bookmaker on the North Side who regularly paid the Chicago mob to operate.

The decision of Texas Republican Party chair Tina Benkiser and former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to formally ally in the race to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee is, by rights, a minor affair, but it has to the potential to be the most important development yet.

The real story behind this story is not even about Pelosi and Rahm; it's about the battle for the hearts and minds of rank and file Democrats, who will face four-way cross-pressures from the White House, their constituents, the Republicans and their party leadership in Congress.

Pelosi knows the power game.
++++++
Not Pelosi for now.

The traditional media is USELESS, PATHETIC, and VENAL. I suggest that team Obama keep the satellite channel that it purchased during the General Election and offer its own programming. I would prefer government sponsored propaganda to the CORPORATE-funded DRIVEL that we are currently subjected to.
+++++++++
Talk about drivel……

A month from now, the nation will say farewell to its sports-obsessed president who doesn't like tough questions. And it will replace him with, well, another sports-obsessed president who doesn't like tough questions.
++++++
The "in the tank" MSM is already starting to turn on Obama

Top Conservatives on Twitter have launched a new action project targeting the “three little piggies” — UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, GM CEO Rick Wagoner, and Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli.

Last night, word was spreading among conservative bloggers that two Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee may be going wobbly on the review of attorney-general nominee Eric Holder at his confirmation hearing. Sens. George Voinovich and Dick Lugar conspicuously chose not to sign a letter to committee chairman Patrick Leahy declaring that Holder's record requires more time to review.
+++++++
After today's revelations about Eric Holder and Rod Blagojevich Flap thinks the GOP will hold up his nomination

Before Eric Holder was President-elect Barack Obama's choice to be attorney general, he was Gov. Blagojevich's pick to sort out a mess involving Illinois' long-dormant casino license.

Blagojevich and Holder appeared together at a March 24, 2004, news conference to announce Holder's role as "special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board" — a post that was to pay Holder and his Washington, D.C. law firm up to $300,000.
+++++++
This may put a stop to Holder's nomination. an organized crime link is not good for a US AG.

ABC News' Matthew Jaffe Reports from Chicago: Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will likely hold a press conference toward the end of this week, ABC News has learned.

The embattled governor, arrested last Tuesday, has yet to respond to charges that he tried to sell President-elect Barack Obama's former Senate seat.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich says the day "will soon be here" when he'll tell his side of the story to the people of Illinois.

As he prepared to go for a jog this morning, an upbeat Blagojevich told reporters outside his home that he's "dying" to talk to Illinoisans. He says he could do so by the end of the day or "maybe no later" than Thursday.
++++++++
When Blago starts to talk the Obama crowd will start to scatter.

How shocking, some folks are saying, that Caroline Kennedy might use her storied last name to land a Senate seat.

I don't recall hearing a whole lot of carping when George Walker Bush, son of George Herbert Walker Bush, became an instantly plausible presidential candidate because his dad had served in the Oval Office.
++++++
The Senate is becoming more like the House of Lords each month.