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Why Election Day Marks the Beginning of the End of Marijuana Prohibition

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By Paul Armentano / Alternet / Nov. 2, 2012

With just days to go before Election Day, voters in two states – Colorado and Washington – are poised to make history.

In Colorado, voters will decide on Amendment 64, a Constitutional amendment that allows for those age 21 or older to legally possess up to one ounce of cannabis and cultivate up to six cannabis plants in the privacy of their home. … In Washington, voters will decide on I-502, a statewide ballot measure that enacts regulations regarding the state-licensed production and sale of marijuana for adults.

The passage of one or both of these statewide measures this Tuesday will be both historic and game-changing. Here’s why.   [Read more…]

Will Superstorm Sandy Keep People From Voting?

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By Steven Rosenfeld / Alternet / Nov. 2, 2012

New Jersey will offer more options, including voting this weekend. New York looks at new polling sites.

Despite power outages and storm damage from Hurricane Sandy, early voting in 2012’s presidential election will continue this weekend in hard-hit states—with New Jersey and Virgina extending hours—and continue on Tuesday, November 6, according to state and county election officials contacted Friday.

“Election Day is Tuesday. There’s nothing that can be done about that,” Tom Connelly, New York State Board of Elections Deputy Director of Public Information, said, noting that the date of every presidential election is fixed by the U.S. Constitution.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line—Will It Ever End? Election Night Could Turn Into Election Week

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The Associated Press is up with a story this morning warning that vote tallies next Tuesday could turn into multi-day events.  Pointing out that the number of California voters casting mail-in ballots this year is expected to surpass 2008, with several statewide contests polling at dead even, the story says final results could take days to tabulate.

Voting officials have distributed 8.9 million mail-in ballots this election cycle, about 20 percent more than were requested in 2008, when about 42% of the 13.7 million ballots cast in the presidential election were sent by mail.  In the 2000 election, only 25% of the electorate voted by mail.

The bottleneck in the counting process is attributed to the number of ballots that are being dropped off on Election Day.  California Secretary of State Debra Bowen is quoted as saying dropped off ballots don’t even start to be processed until 8 p.m.  In 2008, 3.2 million ballots– a quarter of the total vote count– didn’t make the tally on election night.

Inside…Glen Beck at UT-San Diego, Gloria vs. DeMaio, and more…

  [Read more…]

The Educated Voter – San Diego School Board Races

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This is Part One of series on ballot choices in San Diego that relate to our schools.

There’s been a war going on over San Diego Unified’s Board of trustees for a long time now, and this year’s races for school board are just the latest skirmish.

There are two contests for seats on the San Diego Unified School Board and they’re both important.  Politicians (of all stripes) are prone to saying “it’s about the children” whenever they talk about education, but the fact is there are many other issues at play. Candidates for our local top spot all have preened before the cameras touting their education platforms, when the reality is that the School District is financially and politically independent of the City Government.

The Mayor and the City Council can’t actually do squat about what’s going on with schools.  Change, when and if it comes to local schools, is through the Board of Trustees, popularly known as the school board.   [Read more…]

Ryan Invites Feminist to Phone for Romney — Oops!

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by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Last Tuesday, one day after the worst of Hurricane Sandy and one week before Election Day, I received an email from Republican VP candidate Rep. Paul Ryan, inviting me to phone bank for the Romney-Ryan ticket.

Me! The feminist who “won’t vote for Romney or anyone who embraces a fundamentalist interpretation of women’s rights and roles.” A liberal woman phone banking for Romney? Not!

After returning my bottom jaw to a respectable distance from the upper, I enjoyed a moment of wonderment at the thought that the Romney-Ryan campaign might be naïve enough to assume every person who signs up for their campaign emails is a supporter.   [Read more…]

New Poll: Filner Ahead by 7 Points Over DeMaio

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A brand new poll by Pharos Research Group just out shows Congressman Bob Filner ahead of Councilman Carl DeMaio by 7 points.

According to the polling, 47.5% of likely voters in San Diego would vote for Filner and 40.7% are for DeMaio, with 11.9% undecided.

There was also good news for Filner in the polling of favorable / unfavorable numbers. His favorable/unfavorables have improved from a week ago. His numbers come in at48.85/51.55 compared to 42.51/57.49, a week ago. Councilman DeMaio’s numbers come in at 35.31/64.69 compared to 37.75/62.25, a week ago.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Clinton Gives Thumbs Up As Poll Puts Filner in Front

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Congressman Bob Filner used the final debate of the 2012 Mayoral campaign to announce an endorsement by former President Bill Clinton. The face off at the local Fox affiliate was the last of twenty nine joint appearances by Congressman Filner and City Councilman DeMaio. SD Free Press blogger Andy Cohen was there, and I’m assuming he’ll weigh in with more coverage.

Meanwhile, a poll by the Pharos Research Group shows Congressman Bob Filner leading by seven points in San Diego’s hotly contested race for mayor. An analysis of the results says that 708 likely voters answered a live call (meaning that it wasn’t a robo-poll) from October 19 to October 21; 52% of the respondents were men and party identifications closely mirrored that of the city’s electorate.

The survey indicated that 47.46% indicated a preference for Filner, while 40.68% preferred City Councilman Carl DeMaio.   [Read more…]

Busloads of Foreign Looking People and Fraudulent Voting Assistance: Paranoia at the Polls and the City Heights Vote

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This past weekend I suddenly became conscious of a quotidian, unremarkable occurrence in City Heights. I was walking to the number 7 bus stop on University Avenue when a large van with the words Alliance for African Assistance turned down the street. Earlier that morning a mini-van pulled up next door with a small group that socializes regularly with my ethnic Chinese neighbors.

But this weekend I wondered if vans, mini-vans and even buses will be used to get citizens in City Heights to the polls on election day. I hope so.   [Read more…]

Why Carl DeMaio Has Made San Diego the “Battleground City” for his Radical Privatization Agenda

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DeMaio Carries the Radical Right’s Agenda of the Private Ownership of (Our) Government

It was in the middle of April back in 2011, and a couple hundred local Republican bigwigs were holding a gala “unity night” at the Kona Kai on Shelter Island. Mayor Jerry Sanders was joining Republican Councilman Kevin Faulconer, other honchos and establishment types from the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, the Lincoln Club, the Taxpayers Association, plus cadres of right-wing activists – all coming together in an orgy of unified puffery. They had come together to celebrate the launch of a ballot initiative that would severely undercut the power of public sector unions to bargain for their members in San Diego.

One of the heroes and firebrands of the local rightwing, Carl DeMaio got up and made a speech. Somewhere in his spiel, he challenged the gathering with a question – a question that would define the coming year and months in San Diego. DeMaio – a City Councilman – called upon his audience and asked them: “Are you ready to make San Diego the Wisconsin of the West?” His fellow Republicans cheered. They were ready, as was described by the rightward SDRostra.com
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Zombie Attack in San Diego Underway

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Halloween is more than a trick or treating event for hundreds of Marines, Navy special ops types, soldiers, police and firefighters in San Diego today as they confront a nightmarish invasion of the living dead.

The 44 acre Paradise Point Resort on Mission Bay will be the site of a Hollywood-style production of a zombie attack as part of an emergency response training program. It’s just one part of five-day counterterrorism summit run by the Halo Corporation as an approved training event by the Homeland Security Grant Program and the Urban Areas Security Initiative. Participants (or in most cases, government agencies) are coughing up a $1,000 registration fee. The session runs through Friday.

In keeping with the holiday aura surrounding this program, the keynote speaker at the conference is a retired top spook — former CIA Director Michael Hayden.   [Read more…]

Sandra Fluke, My New Hero

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It was so nice at Balboa Park the other day. Sunny. Warm. Bright. People wearing smiles every where I looked. We were gathered at 6th and Laurel for a Rally for Women’s Health, featuring Sandra Fluke, a woman who gained fame for being shunned by a group with no shame who ran a sham they call the United States House of Representatives’ House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

These Big Time Charlies wouldn’t let her speak to them about reproductive freedom for women because, according to them, she had no “expertise.” And she pretty much had to tell them “Hello! I’m a woman, you know, and how much ‘expertise’ y’all got regarding a woman’s needs, I might ask, considering that every single one of you is a man?” Not to mention, (to counter what their smartassed answer to the question is likely to be) men who have not evolved much when it comes to ways of thinking things female beyond their junior high days.   [Read more…]

Advice to Bob Filner: Stop Vilifying Dean Spanos and the Chargers

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The San Diego mayoral candidate’s clumsy statements about the team owner are not helpful, or wise. Update: Watch KUSI Debate

I like Bob Filner. I think he’s been an outstanding representative of our region in Congress, and I think he’ll make a very good mayor. I’ve enjoyed the several interactions that I’ve had with him during his campaign for mayor. I think he’s the right candidate to look to in order to create a better economic environment for all of San Diego. This online publication recently endorsed Bob Filner, and I fully and completely support that endorsement. I wrote the damn thing, after all!

So yes, I will be voting for Bob Filner on Nov. 6. No question whatsoever about it.

There is one thing, though, that I do wish Filner would clean up his act about. During a debate last night on KUSI between Filner and his opponent, Carl DeMaio, the question was posed about the candidates’ support for a new stadium for the Chargers. Both opposed public subsidies, although DeMaio supports the idea of a sports entertainment complex that will include a new football stadium. “But it has to be privately funded,” he said.   [Read more…]

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