Steve Cooley

​ It's a strange complaint: A candidate for one of the most important offices in L.A. County cries foul because his political affiliation is revealed in robocalls to voters. Registered Republican and District Attorney Steve Cooley isn't merely complaining, however -- his office is investigating the person or group behind the calls that were made during 2008's nonpartisan race for District Attorney. Incumbent Cooley won a third term with 65 percent of the vote but now, according to a Jack Leonard story in today's L.A. Times, his prosecutors are tracking down what Cooley campaign manager John Thomas calls "a dirty trick."

Albert Robles

​On the one hand the story shows how radioactive the Republican Party is in Los Angeles -- it's not as though Cooley had been outed as a Communist or member of the States' Rights Party. On the other hand, it demonstrates once more how insidious robocalls, especially those made by shell groups, can be. This one, writes Leonard, was set up by Conrad Braun, a convicted blackmailer who spent time in federal prison for fraud. Braun claims he ran the calls once he got a little envelope with $2,800 in bills in it for an anonymous emailer whom Braun assumed was a Cooley supporter. On the surface the ads sounded as though they were pro-Cooley -- except that they kept reminding the listener that Cooley is a Republican.

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Associated Press reports that the nominee for Labor Secretary, East L.A./San Gabriel Valley Congresswoman Hilda Solis, has been approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Her nomination now goes before the full Senate. Last week Solis' confirmation ran aground after it became known that her husband, Sam Sayyad, had failed to pay taxes on his car repair business, Sam's Foreign and Domestic Auto Center. That disclosure had aroused speculation that Solis' nomination might be headed toward the same trouble that ultimately scuttled the appointments of three other Obama choices, including Tom Daschle, who'd been tapped to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Some saw last week's stall as a roadblock by Republicans who cared less about Sayyad's taxes than Solis' long-standing alliances with organized labor -- in particular, her support for the  Employee Free Choice Act, an upcoming piece of legislation that would streamline union efforts to organize in the workplace.

Sooner or later it had to happen, we suppose. Echo Park graphic artist Shepard Fairey, whose haunting poster illustration of Barack Obama became the defining image of Obama's successful presidential campaign, is being accused of copyright infringement and asked to pay royalties for the source image. The Associated Press claims Fairey based his drawing of Obama on a 2006 photograph of the then-Illinois Senator taken by Mannie Garcia.

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The Drug Enforcement Agency raided two Venice medical marijuana dispensaries today, and a third dispensary in Marina Del Rey. Local DEA spokeswoman Special Agent Sarah Pullen declined to give specifics about the raids or information about possible arrests, citing the agency's ongoing investigation into the outlets. Nor, Pullen said, would her agency be issuing future press releases on the actions -- again, because of its role in the investigation. These are the first known DEA busts of L.A.-area pot dispensaries to occur after the inauguration of President Obama. On the campaign trail in 2008, Obama said he favored an end to such raids, telling one New Hampshire resident, "I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users. It's not a good use of our resources."




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Jon Regardie does not like the L.A. Times online mall, store.latimes.com. The Downtown News editor complains that the Times seems to be plugging its revenue holes with such Times-identified tchotchkes as coffee mugs and T-shirts. Regardie notes the national spike in these kind of items following the election of Barack Obama, which occasioned newspapers across the country "to cash in on the Obamapalooza." Yet Regardie believes the L.A. Times went far beyond merely offering the books and and photos being sold by other papers:

"Want two coffee mugs with images of Times covers from the day after the election and the day following the inauguration? That'll be $24.99, kind sir. A desktop paperweight? A steal at $29.99, my good lady. How about an entire "Election Souvenir Pack" featuring all of the above plus a copy of the Nov. 5 newspaper, a poster and more? It was $259.94, but taking a tip from the purveyors of the Ginsu knife set and the Pocket Fisherman, the price had already been slashed without anyone asking for it."More >>

The L.A. County Federation of Labor, to which I belong as a union delegate, threw an Inauguration Day viewing breakfast this morning. Like the Fed's annual Labor Day breakfast and other early morning rallies, this one showed some health-consciousness in the chicken sausage cakes and turkey bacon offered, although there were also the traditional grits, biscuits and hash browns. As I lingered by the coffee urns, men spoke about Diane Feinstein's indifference (and possible hostility) toward a new federal bill that would make it easier to organize unions, or discussed Sunday's Pre-Inaugural Concert. ("They cut Bishop Robinson from the broadcast," complained one union member. "Okay," replied another, "but they had Pete Seeger play -- can you believe that?")
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Both Huffington Post and a late Associated Press story that was picked up by Salon.com note how the pending inauguration of Barack Obama has galvanized people across the country into performing public service on a grassroots level. The AP piece focuses, at one point, on "hip Silverake [sic]," where "dozens of residents fanned out along Sunset Boulevard, picking its well-littered gutters and sidewalks clean of trash. 'We've never done this before,' said Helen Nasillski, a ballet instructor who was out collecting trash with her husband and two children. 'There's a different feeling in the air these couple of days.'"More >>

Last night's L.A. Times Gold Derby blog presented a video clip of a somber Sean Penn at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, where his portrayal of gay icon Harvey Milk had won the Best Actor Award. Penn did not look to be in the mood for a political discussion, but when asked by Tom O'Neil and Scott Feinberg about the passage of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, Penn didn't hold back.

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Because of the spectacular, train-wreck-in-the-making aspect of this event, we are giving you, gentle reader, an extra day's notice about Wednesday's gay-marriage debate between Gloria Allred and Andy Pugno. Were any two combatants so different and yet so thoroughly matched in their steely determination to wring wisdom, emotion and publicity from an election?












Allred, left; Pugno, somewhere on the right.

Allred, of course, is the Los Angeles attorney who's become a jack-in-the-box figure popping up at tragedies and victim press conferences alike, whether she is representing Britney Spears' bodyguard or Rob Lowe's nanny. More pertinently, she filed the first lawsuit against Prop 8 after its November victory, representing Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, the first same-sex couple to marry in L.A. County last year.

For his part Pugno (his real name), is a Folsom attorney and works for the rightwing SLAPP-suit factory known as the Pacific Justice Institute. He became Prop 8's legal counsel and human face (no photographs available) in its tireless 2008 PR campaign. In one shrewd move, he invited the anti-8 side to debate the issue and, to its everlasting shame, the latter refused. Pugno started out as a fresh-faced campus conservative in the early 1990s and graduated to become a staff spokesman for Assemblyman Pete Knight (R-Palmdale) and Proposition 22, Knight's anti-gay marriage initiative that passed handily in 1996.

The Town Hall L.A. show starts 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, January 14. National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo; $20. (213) 628-8141.

Last Friday the Service Employees International Union announced that its executive board had voted to merge three of its California branches of long-term health-care workers into one mega-local. This would add 90,000-members from SEIU state locals 6434 and 521, to the union's 150,000-member United Healthcare Workers-West unit (UHW).

"The International Executive Board of the Service Employees International Union," crowed an  SEIU press release, "today voted overwhelmingly to adopt the recommendations of an outside hearing officer."

Left: SEIU president Andy Stern

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By Greg Critser

1. Minor Irritants

A certain wearer of these Kawasaki 704 eyeglasses:

A. Conjured endless anxiety and concern for the future of the republic

B. Got a $6 million book deal for portraying said eyeglass wearer

C. Instigated the "hot librarian" movement in American fashion

D. Will be utterly forgotten this time next year

E. All of the above

2. Major Irritants

Faced with the sickest economy in Western Europe, the prime minister of Italy:

A. Promptly proclaimed the president-elect of his key ally, the U.S., "handsome and suntanned"

B. Installed two former Miss Italy contestants to his cabinet

C. Demonstrated his virility by eating "totally nonpoisonous!" mozzarella cheese

D. Spent much of the year taking members of the Italian foreign media to court for portraying him as "not honorable"

E. Was decisively reelected

F. All of the above

3. Local-ish Heroes

In September 1979, the young man pictured above entered Occidental College:

A. Because of the notoriously liberal college's "Satan Studies" program

B. Because of the notoriously traditional college's "Afro Awareness" outreach program

C. Because a really hot girl he knew was going there

D. Because he liked the fact that it had been the setting for the "obviously semiotically driven" Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers

E. Because his favorite OP shorts could be bought at a discount from the mall up the street

F. Because each dorm had a college-provided beer-and-alcohol fund

4. Science Friction

Last January, in an attempt to leave a lasting legacy, human-genome entrepreneur Craig Venter decided to put all of his resources into:

A. Finding a definitive gene cluster that could elucidate the elusive origins of lung cancer, a leading killer

B. Starting a charity to inspire young scientists to "think outside the box"

C. Creating the first wholly synthetic DNA molecule, modeled on a bacterium that is only found on monkey testicles

D. A palatial seaside home in northern Scotland

E. None of the above

5. LDS, or LSD?

With an increasingly cosmopolitan membership experiencing huge job losses, unaffordable health care and growing military fatalities, the leadership of the Mormon Church decided the most important thing to do was:

A. Mount a multimillion-dollar rebranding campaign designed to convince new immigrants that "Yo soy algo un Mormono!"

B. Extend their famed food welfare system to other struggling faith groups

C. Focus their famed tithing program on supplementing medical costs

D. Focus their famed tithing program on helping war widows and widowers

E. Stop gay marriage

6. Moroni, or Moronic?

Faced with a slim but decisive defeat on Prop. 8, Hollywood's leading gay activists decided the most important thing was to:

A. Celebrate that an intervention by God saved them from the suffering of a tyrannical, outmoded institution

B. Take up a Harvey Milk-like campaign to humanize the face of gays as part of the community, and so win over critical black support next time

C. Use discretion to direct a boycott campaign at only the biggest, wealthiest hatemongers

D. Regroup and refocus with an eye on winning a new initiative next year

E. Mainly go after Mormons who made small donations under duress from their idiotic church leaders

7. Mayorismo!

In this photo, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is:

A. Telling the woman in front of him to get out of the way of the camera

B. Telling the woman in front of him to get out of the way of the mirror

C. Posing with a fellow inductee to Madame Tussaud's new wax museum

D. Wishing he could dance like that

E. Wishing he could wear that skirt

F. All of the above

8. Fat Heads

In a series of reports, scientists studying statins and cholesterol found:

A. That the drugs are so effective that we might consider putting them into the drinking water

B. That the overpriced drugs are only really worth it for high-risk heart patients

C. That some statins are better than others

D. That all statins are pretty much alike

E. That because 50 percent of heart patients have completely normal cholesterol, we should give everyone more than 50 statins

F. That because 50 percent of heart patients have completely normal cholesterol, we shouldn't rush to prescribe statins for everyone over 50

G. All of the above

9. Auto Pile-Its

At exactly 8:31 a.m. on Inauguration Day, conservative pundits plan to:

A. Declare that "it's already over" for the Democrats (William Kristol)

B. Opine that Barack Obama "has already blown it" (Joel Kotkin)

C. Compare the cut of the new president's suit to that of Joseph Goebbels (Jonah Goldberg)

D. Ask for a "full impeachment proceeding -- now!" (Rush Limbaugh)

E. Declare that Barack Obama is "utterly out of touch with people in McKeesport, Pennsylvania!" (David Brooks)

F. All of the above

G. None of the above

10. Head Lines

In a shocking series of revelations in 2008, it was discovered that the head of this man:

A. Looks like a testicle

B. Holds the future of print journalism

C. Holds a good recipe for fried chicken

D. Likely requires an atypical antipsychotic

E. All of the above

F. None of the above

ANSWERS: 1) E, 2) F, 3) C, 4) C, 5) E, 6) E, 7) C, 8) G, 9) F, 10) A.

You've got to hand it to CNN.com for scheduling savvy -- on Saturday it tailgated an excerpt from the cable TV network's highbrowed GPS program with a flaming-car pursuit down Orange County freeways, taken from KABC. Colin Powell had just concluded a sober postmortem on the Republican party's 2008 performance, diplomatically chiding the GOP's padded-cell wing embodied by Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. The segment wound down with Powell telling interviewer Fareed Zakaria, "These kind of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts, rather than our better instincts."



The clip ended there -- and was immediately followed by one titled, "Car Chase Ends With Fire." Originally accompanied by insipid, action-news type commentary, the clip (which ran twice as long as the Powell excerpt) would afterward appear without audio. CNN.com further changed the sequence of its Web clips, so that Powell was then followed by a more staid segment on school lunch programs. Still, does anything appeal to our lesser instincts than a car chase?

Historical allusions cling to Barack Obama and they usually compare the president-elect with Lincoln or FDR. Not a few writers have drawn parallels between Obama and John F. Kennedy, which, together with this pre-inaugural season, have reminded me of how the late David Halberstam had opened his Vietnam War history, The Best and the Brightest. The book's first lines grip our senses and don't release them until we've finished the last page; for some, these lines will remain with us the rest of our lives. The Best and the Brightest's curtain raiser so succinctly captures a certain time and attitude in American history that we must resist shedding a tear for that era's breathtaking self-confidence. Here is Halberstam setting an almost symphonic tone for his story:

A cold day in December. Long afterward, after the assassination and all the pain, the older man would remember with great clarity the young man's grace, his good manners, his capacity to put a visitor at ease. He was concerned about the weather, that the old man not be exposed to the cold or to the probing questions of freezing newspapermen . . .

(David Halberstam photo from the East Bay Express.)

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A hot new Field Poll shows Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom are unpopular statewide, and lag so far behind U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein that Di-Fi would sail into the California governor's post if she ran today.

This news after Gawker, based in Manhattan and usually more focused on New York and Washington, this week meticulously took Villaraigosa apart, manicured fingernail by manicured fingernail.

Newsom's popularity plunged after he became the poster boy for Yes on 8, and now even San Francisco progressives are pissed at him.

Villaraigosa has a different problem, beyond the fact that, like Newsom, his negatives are higher than his positives in the Field Poll.

After all of Antonio's ribbon-cutting and primping for the cameras (LA Weekly's Patrick McDonald recently revealed that Antonio spends only about 11 percent of his time on actual city business), a big chunk of California voters simply are not familiar with the guy. Does this portend even more travel outside Los Angeles, even more incessant fund-raising, and even less interest in his real job?

By Tibby Rothman

My friends, if you have relatives that, even after Barack Obama’s election, are still cynical about party politics, go to them now and apologize. I was at the California Democratic Party’s election night celebration at the Century Plaza Hotel and left wanting to puke.

Though Californians placed 1.1 million telephone calls to voters as part of Obama’s get-out-the-vote drive during the final weekend of the 2008 presidential campaign, and experts have cited the candidate’s superlative ground game and grassroots base as key components behind his victory, not one volunteer was scheduled to speak at the California Democratic Party’s official election night bash… or even to be allowed onstage.

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By Tibby Rothman

Many Southern Californians were mystified by this news from the Wall Street Journal and NBC's Firstread blog:

The often stumbling Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose city budget deficit has hit a historic high and who has based his economic plan in Los Angeles almost entirely on a single industry — development, emphasizing massive housing complexes, which left L.A. bad off when the housing bubble collapsed — was chosen by President-elect Barack Obama to be on an elite, 17-member economic advice team, including Warren Buffett, that is meeting Obama in Chicago today.

Rumors flew through City Hall that the "all-about-me" Villaraigosa must have worked even more than 16 hours per day to wangle a spot, much as he did when he lobbied hard to get a seat right behind Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in Denver so that each time the national networks and cable TV cameras flitted to Clinton's face, viewers also saw the grinning Mayor of Los Angeles.

Here's the list of Barack Obama economic advisors:

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Having held back just long enough to avoid voter fury against Sacramento legislators who might have been hurt on November 4 if they backed his plans for a massive tax increase, the anti-tax Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today proposed a stiff hike in the cost of most things Californians buy, which critics immediately assailed as "instant inflation."

His sales tax increase amounts to a roughly 20 percent hike on the current California sales tax. It is being spun as quite small, with the governor insisting it is only 1.5 cents more on each dollar spent.

In fact, it is three times more than the brand new sales tax that voters appear to have approved in Los Angeles County on Tuesday to fund transit projects.

In fact, it would be one of the biggest sales tax hikes in California history.

The San Francisco Chronicle, consistently the best paper for coverage of Arnold, has the story here and angry comments are already pouring in.

While much of the country and the world woke up on November 5 relieved or even joyful at the previous day's election results, the day dawned bittersweet for many others here in Los Angeles and across the state. "It's one of the most exciting days because of, clearly, Barack, and one of the most disappointing days because this thing happened and that's caused a deep, deep sadness," says Cara, a 31-year-old who was marching with her partner, 26-year-old Kelly, through the streets of West Hollywood on Wednesday night. "How do you realize that 50 percent of the population voted for this?"

Photo by Gillian Shure

This, of course, was the passage of Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage in California. Cara and Kelly were among the thousands who took to the streets of West Hollywood to protest the measure's passage. "I'm angry, confused, but hopeful," adds Kelly. "Confused and surprised. I really didn't think it would pass."

The march began in the early evening on Santa Monica Boulevard and spanned from Highland to San Vicente. Protesters carried banners and chanted "Si se puede! Yes, we can!" "What do we want? Equal rights! When do we want them? Now!"

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My friend and guest blogger, She Wants Revenge's Justin Warfield, recently posted -- to great response -- about his great anticipation of yesterday's election (see Election '08: The Night Before Christmas). Here's his follow up to how he and his family felt when it finally became clear yesterday was truly historic.

Very Old Tears: Musings On a Lefty With a Jump Shot Taking The White House
By Justin Warfield
Wednesday, November 5, 2008

It’s been a long hard road, but we’re finally free.
Today is a new day.
A day of hope, a day of relief… a day of freedom.

A weight has been lifted, an obsession removed -- because it’s finally over.

No longer will we juggle five browser windows, BlackBerry alerts, and four hours of cable news on the DVR. No longer will we angrily debate our few republican friends on Facebook about socialism, taxes, '60s radicals and Islam.

Now we can get on with our lives and use our computers for what they were intended -- iTunes, correct sticker placement for coffee shop viewing, and sending your friends links to disgusting shock sites.

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According to a Los Angeles County press release issued moments ago, County Registrar Dean Logan is suspending his department's issuing of marriage licenses or civil marriages for same-sex couples, after reviewing California Secretary of State Debra Bowen's canvass results of Proposition 8.

Logan's office stated that Logan will maintain his current order unless he gets a court order or is required to act otherwise by a "state regulatory agency."

Statewide Semi-Official Election Night results (source: California Secretary of State):
08 - Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry
YES: 5,358,796 52.5%
NO: 4,866,831 47.5%