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 »

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 »

  

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 »

With about 60 days to go before the general election, the US Presidential race is officially on.

We have the prospect of history before us. We will elect either the first Black President or else the first female Vice President. Attention to the race is heightened after two straight weeks of political conventions, high profile appearances and speeches.

According to the TV bean counters, ratings for John McCain and Sarah Palin’s speeches matched or even exceeded those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden the week before. 40 million viewers in prime time. That’s more than the audience for the David Cook/Little David Archuleta showdown on American Idol in May, and more than those who witnessed Daniel Day-Lewis cop an Oscar in February. America, not only are you really into this election, but you have made these people very famous.

And that’s a major thing here: recognition. For a lot of people who may know Read the rest of this entry »

Well that didn’t take long. Not even 24 hours had passed since John McCain, in only his reportedly second meeting, announced that Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska would be his running mate, that the knives have come out from all corners. While social conservative types like Pat Buchanan (whom Palin supported in 2000) and Rush Limbaugh are beyond themselves in rapturous excitement, much of the media and other rational heads have called the pick the single biggest political gamble they had ever seen in modern American history. Ed Rollins, former Reagan henchman and former supporter of Mike Huckabee, has admitted just as much. David Gergen, former administration official under both Republican and Democratic White Houses, an Independent and respected analyst, told Wolf Blitzer he had not seen this coming. A gamble, yes, but one that had potential to possibly ruin McCain’s chances to be President.

The usual suspect of Democrats or Clintonistas are naturally apoplectic. Horny toad James Carville declared himself at “a loss for words” to Larry King on Friday night. This before taking apart Stepford Wifish Nancy Pfotenhauer, once respectable economist-turned McCain acolyte on payroll for repeating over and over again that Palin was the most popular governor in the country right now. As if that brings experience and as if the former mayor of Wasilla, AK three years ago is poised to become Commander in Chief should, God forbid, something happen in the next few years to the 72-year-old McCain. To think this was the most qualified of all Republicans –even, to take the female argument, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas—that McCain could have chosen only points to the political contrivance of this all. Read the rest of this entry »

Fundrace 2008

Care to know if your well-off stepmother is playing a blue or red card? Has your office mate led you astray by donating to the “other” side? Want to know at which party your favorite celeb has thrown millions?

Find out by using this fully interactive Fundrace 2008 map detailing campaign contributions and their sources.

Drag the map to find the hotspot of your choice, and then click to find the juicy details.  You can search Fundrace by name, address, zip code, occupation or employer.

Interesting sidenote: Barack Obama donated $4,600 to Hillary Clinton, then Hillary donated half this amount ($2,300) to Barack.

Wow, this can become addictive.

[Via The Huffington Post]

I was going to write an open letter to Kathy Hilton, she being Paris’s mother, responding to her brief commentary she put up on Huffingtonpost.com over the weekend. She was somehow bothered that John McCain, in an idiotic ad last Friday, suggested that Barack Obama was being treated as a celebrity in the same way as her daughter Paris. (And Britney Spears.)

I was going to call her a hypocrite and that no Hilton would ever turn down any publicity, no matter how unsavory, and that she was just asking for more attention. I was going to challenge her to do the unthinkable: simply say or do nothing and thus not dignify what was, even among many Republican circles and pundits, a superficial ad. Reaching farther still, I was going to blame her for raising the one person who has perhaps singlehandedly glorified the meaning of celebrity and all of its vapidity. I was going to say that Paris, the talentless heiress who became superstar famous for a sex tape and for Read the rest of this entry »

Eager to post missteps or flub-ups designed to embarrass the Obama campaign each day on his gossipy website, Matt Drudge of the Drudgereport managed to find a doozy yesterday. Apparently, rapper Ludacris, aka Chris Bridges, has released a new song called “Politics: Obama is Here”. It’s, not something the Obama people will be happy about, and this despite the fact that their man revealed once in an interview that Ludacris, one of his favorite rappers, was also on heavy rotation on his iPod. Take a quick listen to this uplifting, inspiring and certain future Grammy Award-winning track and don’t forget to follow along with the deep, socially responsible lyrics:

I’m back on it like I just signed my record deal

Yeah the best is here, the Bentley Coup paint is dripping wet, it got sex appeal

Never should have hated

Never should’ve doubted him Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Leibovich’s cover piece in today’s New York Times proves one thing we all knew about John McCain even before he became the presumptive Republican nominee for President: he sucks at public speaking. So worried are his handlers –who are, by the way, new handlers as of this past week due to a shake-up–that they’re trying desperately to make him more camera-friendly. (Or just people-friendly!) They won’t officially confirm that, but they have to be troubled by his less-than-sparkling speaking performances of late. Leibovich describes at length an ambitious new economic proposal of McCain’s, the “Lexington” plan.

Maybe there was something of substance there. Except that in a few separate instances, McCain couldn’t actually pronounce the word Read the rest of this entry »