Results tagged “politics”

Los Angeles is a metropolis, a diversified city of 3.6 million with interests as varied as the neighborhoods that comprise its vast mosaic. Yet, one of the most persistent knocks against this town is its lack of interest in news and politics. Television news, what with its raging hard on for weather-related pieces and sex scandals, gives some life to those pernicious slanders. Print journalism's slow death also does nothing to dispel what may be a lack of interest in the news and the second largest media market in the nation now has one full time AM news station. Thankfully, for you news junkies out there, we have public radio and its weekly news show Left, Right & Center.

[Update: After being ousted from his committee assignments later this morning, Duvall resigned from his post] Talk about scandal. In an exclusive, KCAL9 obtained a video of Orange County Assemblyman Michael Duvall (R-Yorba Linda) allegedly talking about at least two sexual relations beyond his marriage. Why would a 54-year-old man like Duvall be such a popular guy with the Sacramento ladies? Speculation leads to his position of power on the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee where he sits as Vice Chairman.

There’s a diverse community of animators in Chicago, and the Echo Park Film Center brings their work to Los Angeles in “Chi(a)nimation All Stars: Recent Animations from Chicago.” Artist Jodie Mack will share a collection of animated shorts made in Chicago during her time in the Windy City (2005-present). “From hand-drawn character animations, to lush abstractions, to puppet or paint-on glass animation, to glitch video processing--this program illustrates a multitude of midwestern motion experiments!” The show begins at $8 and tickets are $5.

    

Freed Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee arrived with former President Bill Clinton and his team shortly before 6 this morning at Burbank's Bob Hope Airport. The private aircraft went straight to "a heavily secured hangar to meet the waiting crowd, which included former Vice President Al Gore and reporters and photographers," according to LA Now. There Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, were met by their husbands, Lee's 4-year-old daughter Hana, and parents and siblings.

Talk about a mixed message: Posters of President Obama "in Heath Ledger-style Joker make-up with the legend 'Socialism' beneath it has been popping up recently on surfaces around L.A.," Bedlam Magazine reports. While the image does allude to the ubiquitous Shepard Fairey 'HOPE' posters, and its numerous spoofs and riffs, this piece of what our sister-site Chicagoist calls "guerrilla artwork," is trying to convey an altogether different take on the state of the nation under Obama. No one has reportedly come forward to take responsibility for the image. The folks at Bedlam take a stab at analysis:

But is it serious? We'd like to know who the artist is and whether this is the sort of provocative guer[r]illa public art that is intended to encourage people to think (although about what, we're not sure).

Continue reading "Obama as Dark Knight of Socialism Appears in Los Angeles"

The campaign for Chris Essel for Council District 2 has been gearing up for a big announcement this morning, but the LA Times scooped away what the press conference was supposed to announce later this morning. “In both the private and public sectors, Christine Essel has proven that she has the skills and the commitment to get the job done,” Riordan will say, according to a statement obtained by the Times. Essel has served Los Angeles as a mayoral appointee on several difference occasions. She was on the board of the Community Redevelopment Agency during the Bradley and Riordan administrations and on the Board of Airport Commissioners under Villaraigosa as well as the California Film Commission and the California Workforce Investment Board.

As part of his campaign to win the Governor's job in 2010, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will make a stop tonight in Woodland Hills to hold what he's calling one of his "conversations about California's future," at Taft High School, according to the Daily News.

       

Beau Willimon's Farragut North, now onstage in its West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, begins first with a burst of layered noise courtesy a handful of media outlets and their various talking heads rehashing political talking points, and then is followed by the noise of a group of four ambitious people talking rehashing politics and the media--their bread and butter--in an Iowa bar.

       

Boy, who knew something as simple as a banana was such a big thing? Politics, murder, pop culture, this fruit has it all and the boys from the locally based Fallen Fruit Collective journeyed down to South America to explore the subject and came back with an art exhibit that opened last Tuesday with an event called "Are You Happy to See Me?"

California Governor-hopeful and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is part of a trailblazing trend: Politicians and social media. Along with current Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Golden State politicos are part of what is re-shaping the face of campaigns, according to an Associated Press report:

Online social networks are rapidly making traditional political advertisements obsolete, said veteran political strategist Joe Trippi, who used Internet fundraising to propel Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign. The social networks are giving elected leaders like [Newark, NJ Mayor Cory] Booker and Newsom a new way to satiate the public’s hunger for transparency. “These are the first politicians to build considerable followings on Twitter, and they’re doing it by taking the filter out and showing people who they really are,” Trippi said of Booker and Newsom. “Twitter and these other social networks and new media demand authenticity. This is the future.”

Will he or won't he? That seems to be the question of late when it comes to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's 2010 bid for California Governor. In an item run this weekend in the San Francisco Chronicle, the seeds of the no-go rumor were planted, watered, and sprouted: "Our sources in L.A. say Villaraigosa has come to the conclusion that the time is just not right for him to make a state run - given that he hasn't even been sworn in yet to a second term, and that he's facing bloody political fights at home."

Los Angeles is in heavy need for watchdog websites like this. Now, thanks to MapLight Los Angeles, you can easily search campaign contributions to Los Angeles city politicians by date, industry and more. The information has always been available via the City Ethics Commission website, but MapLight parses out the data to be more easy-to-use and accessible. For example, City Attorney candidate has taken $8,500 from the Outdoor advertising services industry--you know, billboards and supergraphics--while Carmen Trutanich has taken $1,500. “Special interests would not be spending millions to fund politicians' election campaigns unless they wanted something in return,” said Daniel Newman, MAPLight.org’s executive director, in a media release. “MAPLight.org Los Angeles shines a much-needed light on the river of money that flows through the second largest city’s government so citizens can make informed decisions at the polls, and hold elected officials accountable when in office.”

It's frowned upon for police chiefs to endorse candidates during campaigns. But so far, Chief William Bratton has endorsed candidates appearing on next Tuesday's ballot, including City Attorney hopeful Jack Weiss. “If Weiss gets in, he is going to owe Bratton,” warned former Chief Daryl Gates in an LA Weekly story by Daniel Heimpel today. That would be a "real problem since one of the city attorney’s purported jobs is to rout out corrupt cops, including police brass," the Weekly notes.

Now here's not a fun way to start your second term in office. The June cover of Los Angeles Magazine will hit homes and newsstands with a cover story, actually an open letter, perhaps to put Mayor Villaraigosa back on track to serve Los Angeles and not his political career when his new term begins on July 1st.

When the banking industry tried to justify their expensive habits they do for employees to President Obama last month, he gave them a stern warning: "Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

Last month, when President Barack Obama announced his town hall-style meeting in Los Angeles, thousands of locals scrambled, as directed, to enter their names in a lottery to win free tickets to the "public" event. But, while "it was free [...] it wasn't exactly public," points out the Daily News.

It's not just in Hollywood where it's about who you know and the connections you have, it easily translates over to local and state politics. The LA Times investigated who gets paid for jobs appointed by politicians and found that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's daughter, Marisela Villar, is paid $68,000 annually as a field representative for Karen Bass to to arrange community meetings and handle constituents' calls. The hardest working city council field deputies who go to work in the morning and come home late at night after community meetings are hardly paid at all, some in the $30,000 range and if they are very lucky, maybe in the low $60s. The paper's list goes on including this interesting one: "Yolie Flores Aguilar, a longtime friend and political ally of some powerful California Democrats, last year supplemented her income as vice president of the Los Angeles school board with more than $32,000 as a consultant assigned to a state Senate committee that, during her tenure, did not meet or release any reports."

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Los Angeles. Read below for a few options that don’t involve Leprechauns or green beers.

California's first lady, Maria Shriver, has lived most of her life in the spotlight, thanks to her high-profile career in television journalism and her familial and marital ties to politics, but now she says "she has no intention of running for public office in 2010," according to an AP report in the Centre Daily News. Mrs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Democrat (and a Kennedy), has been busy with many projects aimed at bettering the lives of Californians, like her recent WEConnect endeavor, and says "she is too much of a free spirit to be tied to a desk job."

Many of us would like to count ourselves as 'politically active'. We are an intelligent country, made up of many of the same demographics as seen in other Western countries. We have the students, the high prices, the motivations, and the anger. We just don't have the riots. Excluding recent racial developments in Oakland and the occasional big sports victory, our 'political activism' may well better be titled 'political pacification'. This isn't Spain, or France, and it sure as hell isn't Greece, where protests and work stoppages are routine. How sad is it that, as a people, we'll flip cop cars for Super Bowls but not suicide missions in Iraq. Not for deception in D.C. President Obama has brought a lot of his hope to America, but it took eight years, and there are many broken social stairs to reclimb before we reach the heights we once enjoyed. But this is not a promotion of rioting. Far from it.

With just over a week to go before the City of Los Angeles takes to the polls to elect--or re-elect--a Mayor, candidates for the job have been participating in public forums to get their platforms and pot-shots out. Yesterday, five of the nine candidates gathered in Tujunga at an event moderated by the Daily News' Ron Kaye; one of those five was decidedly not incumbent Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

It was a rough Valentine's night for California's lawmakers, as they worked until the wee hours trying to resolve our budget. But in the early morning hours today it became apparent that the budget was not going to get the one last Republican vote it needed, and it has stalled.

Congressional Representative Grace Napolitano, who represents various cities in LA County, is under fire today for personally earning over $200,000 in campaign donations because she has been charging an up to 18% interest rate on a loan she personally made in 1998, finds Bloomberg News:

Last week, LA Times columnist Steve Lopez asked readers if they wanted to see incumbent Mayor Villaraigosa debate his top challenger, Walter Moore, and he reveals today that a resounding 97% say yes.

A group called Californians Against the Hate are focusing a lot of their energies right now on Orange County pastor Rick Warren, who will be giving the invocation at Tuesday's Presidential inauguration, to the dismay of many who oppose Prop 8.

Barack Obama is still eight days away from moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but at 12003 Pico Boulevard, the president elect has already moved in. This West LA location features a mural of Obama palling around with a reptile and sea turtle.

Right-winged mouthpiece Ann Coulter's recent gum flappings as a result of being "bumped from a scheduled NBC appearance" seems to have gotten "her and her new book more press than if she’d gone on air as originally planned." The OC Register's Total Buzz blog notes that Coulter has managed to draw a sell-out crowd for an upcoming Orange County appearance. Coulter is scheduled to make a February 5th stop at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda on her promo tour for her latest tome, Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America. Following public statements from NBC saying Coulter's anti-Obama stance was a real "downer," the opinionated Ann remarked on her website today that her book actually happens to be "the downer America has been waiting for."

OC Pastor Rick Warren has been in the headlines recently thanks to his upcoming participation in the inauguration of Barack Obama as President. Warren's support of California's Proposition 8 has tarnished Obama's message of hope for many, and now Warren's past statements about same-sex marriage are receiving even more scrutiny. Today CBNNews.com published a series of quotes taken from two video messages Warren put online in October and December, respectively, for his parishioners at the Saddleback Church.

A rollercoaster ride may resemble Democratic National Committee member Ed Espinoza's 2008 but it doesn't paint the whole picture. Rollercoasters don't quite peak like Espinoza's year. He was part of the process which saw his party’s historic candidate elected to the country’s highest office.

Tomorrow, Los Angeles's own Rep. Henry Waxman will begin his reign as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee when Congress inaugurates its 111th session.