Browsing Category: "SMASH Politics"
There have been a lot of post-mortems in the wake of the disturbing passage of Proposition 8 in California, which would have upheld the state Supreme Court’s decision in May to allow same-sex marriages. Protesters have taken to the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco voicing their dissent. Some have marched on the steps of the Mormon temples, especially since it’s been revealed that LDS money from Utah helped fund the Yes on 8 campaign throughout the state. Tens of thousands have also taken to signing petitions that seek to overturn the vote. Other petitions charge that because of its overt involvement in the campaign, the Mormon Church should lose its precious tax exemption status. Read the rest of this entry »
The utterly transformative and historic moment in Chicago’s Grant Park last Tuesday night held millions around the world spellbound. The image of the newly-elected 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and two young daughters waving to the crowds was something many people genuinely thought they’d never see. An African-American first family. A Black man who finally and most decisively achieved whatever this mythical “American dream” represented. A 20-month-old campaign was finally over, and Barack Hussein Obama triumphed, winning not only the popular vote on Tuesday but also the electoral vote by a margin of more than 2 to 1. Obama won in states that had not voted for a Democrat since 1964. The Commonwealth of Virginia, where the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War stood, went for Obama, as did North Carolina. As did Iowa. As did many states. They voted –Americans voted in large numbers for a Black man. Even in a country where racial attitudes still exist, one of the remarkable facts about Tuesday’s election was that Americans put aside those differences and took a proud and measured chance on a new leader and a new hope. Read the rest of this entry »
Where do I vote in California?
It can be tricky - voting stations move and don’t always send location-change information. Below is a list of California polling places (addresses, phone numbers, and a relevant website if available) so you can find your designated voting location and get out there and make things happen.
Currently, Calvoter.org is jam-packed with visitors and the site is teetering due to the large (and very refreshing) demand for info on where to cast your ballot.
You can also call the Voter Assistance Hotline 1-800-345-VOTE for additional information, should the list below not have what you’re looking for.
OR Give Google’s new 2008 US Voter Info a shot and enter the home address where you are registered to vote:
Alameda (01)
1225 Fallon Street, Room G-1
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 272-6973
www.smartvoter.org/ca/alm/
Alpine (02)
PO Box 158
Markleeville, CA 96120
(530) 694-2281
No Polling Place Look-Up Available Read the rest of this entry »
So you’ve got free donuts and a free scoop of ice cream. Now on November 4, Starbucks wants to reward you voters with a free cup of coffee. Launched last night on “Saturday Night Live”, the commercial, part of the “Shared Planet” campaign, states that everyone who votes will get a cup of Starbucks coffee. Sounds like a deal. Now would you believe there are people who actually have a problem with this? KCBS-TV in Los Angeles apparently has questioned the legality of providing what could be seen as bribes to voters.
There is a California Elections Code, section 18521 (b), which prohibits rewarding people for voting or not voting. Another California companion statute contains similar language, saying the law is meant to prevent people from being bribed with money, food or alcohol. Technically speaking, any violation of the law could get you a prison sentence of 16 months to 3 years. Read the rest of this entry »
From the Huffington Post this afternoon, a deliriously rich and successful prank on Sarah Palin. Montreal’s own Masked Avengers somehow got on CKOI radio and managed to snag Palin’s people on the phone with the tasty bait that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France wanted to say hello. How on earth would this possibly happen? Aren’t Palin’s people a little suspicious of a head of state using a Quebec radio station to spread a little last-minute campaign cheer? This is a radio station! Idiot DJs, only in this case the Masked Avengers have been successful before in hoodwinking celebrities like Queen Elizabeth, Jacques Chirac, Bono and Donald Trump before. With folksy Sarah Palin, they have landed on a goldmine because in the following five minutes, not only does the interviewer or the pretend-President Sarkozy not lose his composure, but Palin just keeps up that fawning, down-home charm and spunk that she’s famous for—and is essentially clueless. Read the rest of this entry »
Ah! The sugar! Ah! The saturated fat! The buttercream! Oh, wait, let me start over. Next Tuesday all Americans have a moral and civic duty to fulfill, by going over to their local polling places and marking their ballots for what is possibly the most important election of their lifetimes. Two candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. Numerous Senate races all over this great land. Important statewide propositions, including here in California. You all –we all—have to do our part to get out the vote and, from what pundits are predicting, the turnout will be heavy, so get there early. Already voted by mail? Awesome. Well, this kinda applies to you too. Read the rest of this entry »
Someone forwarded this e-mail to me this morning. It’s probably going around the Internet. Let me share it:
How Racism Clouds Judgment
What if things were switched around?
Think about it. Would the country’s collective point of view be different?
Ponder the following:
- What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
- What if Read the rest of this entry »
In watching last night’s Barack Obama’s 30-minute prime-time TV ad, one couldn’t escape the sense that this was a culmination of sorts. We are now 5 days away from the most important election of our times, and never have I seen such intense interest in a presidential election. Then again never have I seen such an “advertisement”, or “commercial”, that was so seamlessly produced in a way that could capture the nation’s attention so close to an election by such a unique candidate. Should we reproach Obama for the fact that his campaign has the wherewithal to fund this ad and approach the seven TV and cable networks (CBS, NBC, Fox, MSNBC but not ABC or CNN) and say, “Can we buy 30 minutes of air time?”? Is it fair that his campaign, at last count, has now amassed something close to $600 million? If the largesse were McCain’s, don’t you think they would have done the same? It just strikes me that the McCain campaign has been engaging in some childish playground name-calling. They don’t like that this time it’s the Democrats who have clearly outspent them. They don’t like to acknowledge the fact that their candidate has been without a clear and defining message and that, though the race will probably tighten in the waning days, this campaign has been in a freefall. Read the rest of this entry »
Bob Schieffer of CBS News moderated this third debate, a fairly lively one, from Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. Coming into this, McCain had to make up for some lost ground in the last couple of weeks amid a financial crisis that has made most Americans edgy about having a Republican in charge. McCain’s numbers have been down; some would say that his negative campaigning and declining confidence in running mate Palin have caused somewhat of a free fall. In contrast, Obama’s numbers have either risen slightly or remain stable. What McCain had to do was something more aggressive in this debate, which would focus on domestic policy, that would set Obama on edge and keep him constantly on the defensive. As a bonus, if he could throw the normally unflustered Obama, McCain could score some much-needed points. Read the rest of this entry »
The start of the “Rachel Maddow Show” on October 10 made for some pretty arresting TV. The daily MSNBC talk show, which premiered in late September, had as its lead topic the increasingly hateful and obnoxious crowds that have been whipped up as some sort of strategy by both John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. Things had reached a breaking point, and so too, had the 31-year old host, herself an incisive political analyst, Stanford-educated and a former Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. That Friday was also the day that John McCain ran into a nasty crowd and tried to placate it by saying that that Obama “was an honorable man” while supporters tried to boo him. One elderly woman went so far as to call Obama an “Arab” as she stood there, microphone in hand, as McCain quickly tried to correct her. It was both an uncomfortable and remarkable moment. This is where the McCain/Palin campaign, so bereft of message and purpose and cynical enough to have us believe it’s better to simply smear, that it has now been able to rile up people in ways that have become coarse and divisive, and sometimes downright dangerous. Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, indeed, the sane and thoughtful political discourse in this country is alive and well, thanks to Diddy’s latest video blog entry from his site on Bad Boy Records. John McCain, and not Sarah Palin, he says, scares him because of the “That one” remark from Tuesday’s debate. Diddy has TiVo? Looks like he just replayed it. Incredulous, he likens this remark to something that could be said “in 1962” when in fact “it’s 2008”. What is a multi-millionaire mogul rapper-stylist-baggy-clothes-designer-NY-bon-vivant-general nuisance supposed to do? He tells us he really could “say something” here that’s “insane”, but, whew, he spares us what he is really thinking. What a relief.
Memo to Diddy:
If you really want to see something scary, try turning on your TV to Read the rest of this entry »
Tom Brokaw had it right tonight. As Obama and McCain walked onstage in Nashville for their second debate of the campaign, the mood of the country had changed tremendously since their first encounter on September 26. The Dow plunged over 500 points today and the index is closer to 9000 than 10,000; people are concerned about the economy in ways that they haven’t since the Great Depression and voters especially are anxious for answers out of these somewhat desperate times. As a result, there was a somber feel to this evening’s affair given the crisis; a distinct pallor or dark cloud seemed to hang over the heads of the two candidates. Read the rest of this entry »
Uh oh. Soledad O’Brien is hopped up on speed, talking so fast and loudly flailing her arms at a captive Columbus, Ohio audience as she talks up this hokey device that CNN is giving them during the Biden-Palin debate. We’re supposed to be mesmerized by this focus group, which has been given an all-you-can-eat fried shrimp dinner at a Red Lobster, with their voting devices, signaling up and down throughout the debate when either candidate makes a gaffe or hits a home run. We are t-minus 5 minutes to the Vice Presidential debate between the hockey mom from Wasilla and the scrappy veteran Senator from Delaware. The candidate from nowhere versus the insider who entered the Senate when Sarah Palin was in the second grade. Oh, by the way, she made this stupid point to Katie Couric the other day, an obvious dig at Biden’s age. Imagine that. She makes a jab at her opponent when it is she who everyone fears would become President should old guy McCain drop dead sometime in the future. That is, if he wins. Read the rest of this entry »
The first Presidential debate of the election season between Barack Obama and John McCain at Ole Miss was a mostly sobering, understated affair. No one tossed any pounding blows. No one came away with any killer lines. There was, I think, a fairly decisive victor but it wasn’t necessarily because of debating skill or technique. This was to be a battle between the 72-year-old McCain and the much younger upstart Obama, the former clearly one with experience in the Senate dealing with the evening’s theme, foreign policy and national security. Obama, by contrast, had to be seen as the distinct challenger and there is evidence that his poll leads have not been as high because voters have taken his relative lack of experience to heart. McCain clearly tried to expose this vulnerability as much as possible. But Obama was able to hold his own against the senior senator.
Some highlights (and lowlights): Read the rest of this entry »
There’s no need to set this one up. Triumph, the nasty, potty-mouthed Doberman that is the creation of long time cocmedy writer Robert Smigel (“SNL”), and a recurring character on Conan O’Brien, is at it again. This time he and his acid tongue has been sent to St. Paul’s Excel Center and the recent Republican National Convention. It’s not only hilarious to see this puppet dog in a straw hat and cigar, but it’s amazing that Smigel can come up with such rapid ad-lib zingers to the pale, captive crowd of supporters. And somehow, in the end, Triumph also succumbs to the charm of a certain sexy and zesty librarian VP choice, Sarah Palin.
In the interest of fairness, Conan’s people also sent Triumph to Denver for the Democratic extravaganza. But these two clips are uproarious, and it’s not merely the fact that many of these people are not as familiar with Triumph or his schtick. There are two clips here, in fact, and the MO is the same. Triumph searches out the Read the rest of this entry »
