Marilyn Davenport, who serves on the Orange County Republican Party’s central committee, sent out an extremely racist e-mail depicting Obama as the child of monkeys, as a way of explaining why he doesn’t have a birth certificate.  And this isn’t her first offense when it comes to race.

CBS interviewed former chairman of the California Republican Party Michael Schroeder, who says that this email is Davenport’s third strike. He is calling for her resignation, citing two previous incidents in which Davenport defended the racist actions of two fellow Orange County conservatives.

The first was during President Obama’s inauguration, when Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose forwarded an email depicting a watermelon patch on the White House lawn to several people. According to Schroeder, Davenport defended Grose amidst calls for his resignation.

Schroeder also says that Davenport defended Newport Councilman Richard Nichols when he opposed installing grassy areas at a beach. His reason, according to the L.A. Times: “with grass we usually get Mexicans coming in there early in the morning and they claim it as theirs, and it becomes their personal, private grounds all day.”

Now that she’s been caught, she of course is claiming this was just a “joke”, and doesn’t understand why people are upset about it.

Her non-apology includes the tired old “liberals did this to Bush” excuse, which shows she’s also quite stupid when it comes to understanding American history and the use of depicting black people as monkeys.  And she refuses to resign her position.

“I’m sorry if my email offended anyone. I simply found it amusing regarding the character of Obama and all the questions surrounding his origin of birth. In no way did I even consider the fact he’s half black when I sent out the email. In fact, the thought never entered my mind until one or two other people tried to make this about race. We all know a double standard applies regarding this president. I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn’t particularly like yet there was no ‘cry’ in the media about them. One only has to go to Youtube or Google Images to see a plethora or lampooning videos and pictures of Obama, Bush and other politicians. That being said, I will NOT resign my central committee position over this matter that the average person knows and agrees is much to do about nothing. Again, for those select few who might be truly offended by viewing a copy of an email I sent to a select list of friends and acquaintances, unlike the liberal left when they do the same, I offer my sincere apologies to you–the email was no meant for you. For any of my friends or acquaintances who were the recipients of my email and were truly offended, please call me so I may offer a sincere verbal apology to you.”

Here is the offending image.  I had debated whether I should post a copy of it for a while, before remembering what Harvey Milk said about those death threats made to him, that to put it out in the open is better than keeping it hidden.

Now, whether she keeps her job may not be up to her.

“It’s unbelievable,” one high-ranking OC GOP official told me. “It’s much more racist than the watermelon email. I can’t believe it was sent out. I’m not an Obama fan but how stupid do you have to be to do this?”

Another GOP official, who also asked not to be identified, said that Davenport is “a really, really sweet old lady so I am surprised to hear about this.”

Scott Baugh, chairman of the OC Republican Party, told Davenport that the email was tasteless, Davenport–a Fullerton-based political activist–admitted to me during the telephone interview.

“You’re not going to make a big deal about this are you?” she asked me. “It’s just an Internet joke.”

But Baugh believes the email is a big deal.

“When I saw that email today I thought it was despicable,” Baugh said. “It is dripping with racism and it does not promote the type of message Orange County Republicans want to deliver to the public. I think she should consider stepping down as an elected official.”

Michael J. Schroeder, an Orange County resident and former chairman of the California Republican Party, also said he was disgusted.

“This is a three strikes situation for Marilyn Davenport,” Schroeder said. “She was a passionate defender of former Newport Beach city councilman Dick Nichols who stated that he was voting against putting in more grass at Corona del Mar’s beach because, he said, there were already ‘too many Mexicans on the beach.’ She was also on the wrong side of the fence with the Los Alamitos mayor and his White House watermelon patch picture. Now, she has managed to top both of those incidents by comparing African Americans to monkeys. She has disgraced herself and needs to resign. If she doesn’t, the Republican Party must remove her.“

The latest from the AP indicates that Baugh is looking into starting an ethics investigation into Davenport.

This should be all over the local news tonight.  We should see what her Tea Party friends have to say about this.  Will they stand by her, or denounce her?

Attorney At Arms wrote about getting a deceptive flier from Californians Vote Green, which had endorsements of several Democratic politicians, but then also urged voters to vote Yes on Props. 14, 16 & 17.  At the time, it was unknown exactly what this group was.  But now we have some more information.  First, Dave Johnson did some research and found that PG&E paid $40,000 to CVG to appear on the flier.

Finally, April Worley at the New Times wrote a great exposé on this group.  It seems that the politicians who paid to be on the flier were also misled.

An advertisement on a campaign mailer sent to residents by the committee Californians Vote Green endorses Proposition 16, accompanied by the headline “Vote for a Greener California.” Several candidates who strongly oppose the proposition, including San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Bruce Gibson, say they were not told their advertisements would appear alongside that endorsement.

….

Gibson was not informed the Yes on 16 campaign had paid $40,000 to be included on the statewide mailer when he paid about $500 to put his advertisement on a local version of the slate card. “This is just awful, just abhorrent,” Gibson said, explaining his campaign thought the flyer would be a vehicle to get his “name out” to environmentally conscious Democrats. “I am very disappointed in the mailer. My understanding of what it was supposed to be was not this. It was a mistake to sell that space to PG&E, and a really cynical use of advertising. This does no Democrat any good. It is just confusing people,” Gibson concluded.  

“The short answer is that I was tricked and lied to,” April Vargas, a candidate for supervisor in San Mateo County, wrote on a California political blog, regarding the mailer. “When I was approached [by Paul Arney from Dakota Communications] about the mailer,” she told New Times, “I was told it was environmentally minded. I asked for a list of other candidates and measures before I purchased space because I wanted to be very clear about the values I did not support. At no point was I told that Yes on 16 would have a place on the mailer. I was also never told that they retained the right to sell space to other measures.”  Vargas strongly opposes Proposition 16.

Worley then looks into the people behind this group.

The contact email address on the Californians Vote Green homepage is [email protected]. Rick Taylor is a partner at Dakota Communications, a Los Angeles-based PR firm with a lengthy corporate, political, and government client list including Home Depot, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, and Obama ’08. Taylor gained notoriety in July 2007 for a leaked memo he wrote to Home Depot giving instructions on how to forge the appearance of community support for construction of a store in the Los Angeles Sunland-Tujunga neighborhood.

Taylor claimed in an interview with New Times he serves on the campaign committee Californians Vote Green personally, not as a representative of Dakota Communications. He is the “spokesperson” for the group. The campaign committee consists of a “handful” of people he said, whose identities Taylor would not disclose who, according to him, “believe in the vote of the people” as the reason why Proposition 16 appears on the mailer. “Our campaign committee is proud of the card,” he maintained. “But all it is is a piece of political mail.” When Romero’s and Vargas’ campaigns were billed for their advertisements on the mailer, the invoices came from Paul Arney at Dakota Communications.

Steve Barkan, a media consultant for Senator Gloria Romero’s campaign for superintendent of public education, said Dakota Communications contacted them about advertising and the campaign bought space because “Dakota Communications is a very reputable firm” even though it is “unfortunate” Yes on 16 appears on the mailer with their ad. “I would have a very hard time understanding a pro-environment stance on 16,” said Barkan. “More and more of these slates are out there. It really is buyer beware.” Senator Romero opposes Proposition 16. Her ad on the mailer sent statewide cost $40,000.

The contact physical address on the mailer for the group Californians Vote Green is that of the David L. Gould Company headquarters, a political consulting firm with offices in Los Angeles and San Diego. David Gould is president of the California Political Treasurers Association, as well as the legally registered Responsible Officer of the group Californians Vote Green. The website printed on the mailer, CaliforniansVoteGreen.com, links to a page that only sells ad space, and contains no information on any environmental issues. Gould declined to comment.

Gould’s phone number is also the contact on a run of two separate mailers presented as voting guides in San Diego County in late October 2005. One was labeled “Democratic Voters Choice” and the other was a Republican version with identical endorsements titled “Citizens for Good Government.” Both featured candidates who had paid to appear on the mailers, as well as some who did not, alongside a call to vote NO on a proposition for state assistance to low-income children for the purchase of prescription drugs, and YES on a proposition financed solely by the PhRMA California Initiative Fund (paid for by more than 30 pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, and Merck) directly in opposition to the California Democratic Party’s official stance. According to the Slate Mailer Organization Campaign Statement, the PhRMA California Initiative Fund paid $45,000 for advertising on both versions of the mailer.

So I’ve never heard of the players involved here.  But hopefully some of you reading this have, and can shed some more light on who these people are, and if there’s any motives behind this other than making money.

Now, I went to the Califonians Vote Green website, and there’s another e-mail listed there.

(You must have recieved your order confirmation number before submitting. If you need a confirmation number contact [email protected])

So anyone know who this Paul Joseph character is either?  Hopefully we can spread the word about this deceptive flier before more people are fooled.  Larry Fahn had an op-ed in the Marin Independent Journal about getting this flier too.  Can anyone here get the L.A. Times or the San Francisco Chronicle to write a story about this?

I know, I know, deceptive mailers are as old as political campaigns.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t push back against them.

WTF???  Prince Frederic von Anhalt, better known as Zsa Zsa Gabor’s 8th husband, has declared he’s running as an independent for the Governorship.  It looks like he’s running on a pretty liberal platform, what with being in favor of gay marriage, legalizing marijuana, and raising taxes on certain products.

He already has a platform (titled “Return the Good Life to California”) that is sure to win favor with a certain segment of California’s electorate. He wants to lift the import ban on Cuban cigars, then tax them, and reduce vehicle-registration fees, making up the difference in part by taxing “bad drivers.”

He also is offering what he says are realistic proposals that will have an immediate effect on California’s $20 billion budget deficit.

One proposal is a “sin tax” on alcoholic beverages and cigarettes, as well as marijuana and prostitution, which, under his platform, would be legalized.

“Marijuana is a big industry already,” von Anhalt said in a telephone interview from his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air, where he cares for his 93-year-old wife. “Let’s legalize it, tax it, make some money and put less people in jail.”

A statewide initiative to legalize and tax marijuana is likely to appear on the November ballot.

He also favors repealing the ban on gay marriage, which voters wrote into the state constitution in 2008.

“I believe in marriage between men and women, but I am also a defender of the constitution, which says equal rights for all,” he said in his platform. “Let them be as miserable as the rest of us.”

Now, why am I finding out about this in the Boston Globe, rather than the L.A. Times or the San Francisco Chronicle?

With all the hair-pulling over health care, I thought I’d share a heart-warming story from UCLA, where last week, our freshman class, 4,300 strong, went out a few days before school started to volunteer in the community.  From painting walls, to cleaning up the beach, to clearing dry brush, this was the first time anything of this magnitude had been attempted, and UCLA plans to make this a yearly tradition.  We even got on the CBS Evening News!

And it looks like we may have just set a national record in the process, too.  🙂

UCLA Volunteer Day recap

In what is believed to be the nation’s largest-ever university-organized volunteer day, an army of 4,300 UCLA freshmen and transfer students, the size of a NATO brigade, fanned out across Los Angeles Tuesday morning to make the city a better place.

Although classes don’t start until Thursday, students are getting a lesson in community service. For UCLA’s first Volunteer Day, nearly 1,000 students began trail repair at Griffith Park, 1,000 more tackled beach clean-up at Point Dume in Malibu, and about 500 each beautified the Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles and five Los Angeles Unified School District campuses.

….

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, who has made volunteerism a priority since taking the reins in 2007, was joined by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at Gompers Middle School in South Los Angeles to applaud the 600 Bruins blanketing the campus. They scurried across the asphalt, repainting basketball court outlines and giving buildings a new coat of paint.

“This is an opportunity right at the get-go to say, ‘Service is important at UCLA,'” Block said. “UCLA Volunteer Day is an affirmation of UCLA’s obligation, as a public university, to serve the community … It’s an opportunity for our students to help out, but hopefully it’s just the beginning of a year long of service.”

All together, the 4,300 students, joined by 300 staff, faculty, alumni and older undergraduates who served as task captains, slathered on 555 gallons of paint, planted dozens of trees at schools, restored trails at Griffith Park, rebuilt fences at Point Dume and more. Across the 26 different work sites, the people who care for the campuses and parks on a daily basis told the students how much the work meant.

Here’s a short video UCLA made about the day with quotes from the chancellor and L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

And these videos show the day from the student perspective.

(Check out that awesome map at the 3:38 mark!)

There’s also a Flickr page for all the different volunteering efforts from that day.

Perhaps the most amazing and inspiring thing about this was that it wasn’t mandatory for the freshman class.  Thousands of UCLA freshmen did it because they wanted to help out.  This was pure volunteerism to better the community we live in.

So.  UCLA has now laid down the gauntlet.  As a proud Bruin alum and current grad student at UCLA, I’m issuing a challenge to every other university in the country to do the same in your own communities.  Organize this, and get your students involved in something bigger than themselves.  We’ve shown it can be done with remarkable success in just our first year, and we’ll be hopefully doing this from now on, every single year.  Every school should do the same.  Will you meet our challenge?

Just wanted to inform everyone here, if you’re in the Los Angeles area this Sunday, September 13, there will be an Attorney General candidate forum at USC.  Here’s the details.

Join the California Young Democrats, the Los Angeles Region Young Democrats and the USC College Democrats and Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics at USC for our forum of Democratic Candidates for Attorney General. The Attorney General Candidates who will be in attendance are: Assemblymember Ted Lieu, Assemblymember Pedro Nava, Assemblymember Alberto Torrico, Former Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly.

The event will be held in the basement of Leavey Library at the University of Southern California.

Parking is available for $8 at Parking Structure X right off Figueroa and USC McCarthy Way. Limited street parking can also be found in the surrounding neighborhood.

The Facebook event page says it will run from 1:45pm to 3:30pm.  And no, it looks like Kamala Harris will not be there.  Still, it’s a chance to hear from the others.

It looks like Arnold has appointed Jerome Horton to fill Judy Chu’s seat on the Board of Equalization, now that she’s in Congress.  But the L.A. Times piece warns that liberal Democrats may not be so happy about this.

Q: Horton’s a Democrat. And there’s nothing wrong with being a moderate. So what’s the big deal?

A: In tax policy circles, “moderate” is code for business-friendly, which changes the balance on the five-member board. The state is divided into four districts: 1st (representing the entire California coast, from Oregon to Santa Barbara; automatically a Democratic seat); 2nd (cow counties, tax revolt counties, the desert portion of L.A. county: Republican seat); 3rd (San Diego, Orange, Inland Empire; in other words, Republican seat); and 4th (the non-desert portions of L.A. County. Democrat). The tie is broken by the state controller, who is Democrat John Chiang. But Horton would be expected to mix things up by voting, sometimes, with the Republicans. And those tax policy votes will make a far bigger difference to California, in the short run at least, than anything Chu could possibly do in Congress.

….

Q: Is Horton going to be confirmed by the Legislature?

A: Not without a lot of angst and political saber-rattling. If he’s not confirmed, and no follow-up appointment is confirmed, a former Chu staffer will fill in until the BOE election next year. Bet you can hardly wait.

So what do you guys think about Horton?

Unreal.  Per Huffington Post, Barbara Boxer was accused of being “racial” today at a hearing on climate change!  The witness, Harry Alford, was from the National Black Chamber of Commerce, which seems to be a bunch of pro-business global warming deniers who oppose fixing our climate change problem.  He claims green jobs aren’t being created in California, that they don’t exist.

Later, Boxer cites an NAACP report that supports climate change legislation, and suddenly Alford goes off calling her “racial” and “condescending”.

“All that’s condescending, and I don’t like it. It’s racial. I take offense to it. As an African-American and a veteran of this country, I take offense to that,” he said. “You’re quoting some other black man — why don’t you quote some other Asian or some other… You’re getting racial here.”

“You’re speaking on behalf of the black community?” Alford asked. “Why are you doing the colored people association’s study with the black Chamber of Commerce?”

….

“We’ve been looking at energy policy since 1996. And we are referring to the experts, regardless of their color. And for someone to tell me, an African-American, college-education veteran of the United States Army, that I must contend with some other “black group” and put aside everything else in here — This has NOTHING to do with the NAACP, and really has nothing to do with the National Black Chamber of Commerce. We’re talking about energy. And that — that road the chair went down, I think is God awful.”

Wow.  Just wow.  Here’s a question, why should we give one flying fuck about what the National Black Chamber of Commerce has to say about climate change?  If they have a legitimate claim to make, then I see no problem in Boxer citing what the NAACP has to say in return.

Lost in all the coverage over the budget battle in California is that we’ll be voting in Los Angeles for City Attorney to replace Rocky Delgadillo.  Two of the leading candidates are Carmen Trutanich and Jack Weiss.  Now, I’m no expert on this race, but from what I’ve seen, Trutanich would be a very dangerous choice.

Trutanich calls himself an “environmental attorney”.  And yes, he indeed has been a tireless defender… of Big Business, fighting AGAINST environmental standards.  Just look at this paper he wrote called “Defending Environmental Crimes” (.pdf), a how-to guide for lawyers defending corporate polluters and the like.  He also defended John Woodrum, the guy who shot and killed sea lions.  How nice.  And you got to love his campaign’s spin on that: taking the case and having “plead guilty and take responsibility” for killing those sea lions.  Uh-huh.  Because that’s what good defense lawyers do, right?  Tell their clients to plead guilty and “take responsibility”?

Oh, and Trutanich’s firm represents the NRA, and has threatened to sue Los Angeles for our tighter gun control laws.

His latest ad depicts Latinos as gang members, which should surely endear him to the Hispanic population here.

But above and beyond all this, us Bruin fans have known about Trutanich for a while now as basically the USC Trojan football team’s in-house lawyer.  Every time a USC football player gets arrested for rape/robbery/etc., he’s suddenly there to represent the player, who could not possibly afford Trutanich, and yet he’s representing them anyway.  (Hmmmm……)

Odds are Long Beach attorney Carmen Trutanich will make the potential misdemeanor assault charges against linebacker Rey Maualuga go away without lifting a finger.Trutanich, a defense lawyer known around Delgadillo’s office as “Nooch,” rotated in and out of his staff job on the 8th floor of City Hall so fast recently, it’s hard to tell if he was coming or going.

….

Trutanich, a former prosecutor with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, represented former USC cornerback Eric Wright after Wright was arrested on suspicion of rape while in possession of 136 hits of Ecstasy in March. In April, after Trutanich put together a defense team consisting of himself, a Torrance-based attorney and an investigative firm, the D.A.’s Office found insufficient evidence to file sexual-abuse or drug charges, according to news reports.Last year, Trutanich represented running back Hershel Dennis, who emerged from a four-month investigation for alleged sexual assault with no arrest and no charges. NCAA and Pac 10 officials inquired about pay arrangements in both cases. Trutanich said the families paid.

Oh, and to show how petty he is, in 2006, it was announced that Trutanich would no longer defend USC players because… his daughter didn’t get into USC.  Looks like school loyalty only went so far with Trutanich.

Meanwhile, L.A. City Councilman Jack Weiss is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who worked on prosecuting gang members and white collar criminals.  He helped write those gun control laws Trutanich threatened to sue the city over.  He vows to prosecute those who pollute our environment.  People like LAPD chief Bill Bratton, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Rep. Diane Watson, and L.A. City Councilman Herb Wesson have all endorsed Weiss.  So has the L.A. County Democratic Party, along with groups like Planned Parenthood (L.A. chapter).

And to compound the UCLA-USC rivalry, Weiss got his law degree at UCLA, and was also the editor-in-chief of the UCLA Law Review.

So… on one hand we have a tough-on-crime prosecutor who fights polluters.  On the other, we have someone who defends polluters and wants to weaken our gun laws, and whose election would be Pete Carroll’s dream come true, knowing that his players could get away with murder at USC, and the city attorney wouldn’t lift a finger to do anything about it.

Oh, and there’s some others (Michael Amerian, David Berger) also running that I’ve never heard of.

(To further my own personal conflict on this, in the last election he was in, I voted for Weiss’s primary opponent.  Quite a few UCLA students felt he had neglected us, while his opponent reached out to us.  And yes, there’s talk that Weiss is hated by the other councilmembers.  Still, between him and Trutanich, the choice could not be clearer if you’re a Democrat/environmentalist/Bruin.

And to make it really personal for me, I’ve been friends with Trutanich’s daughter for over a decade.)

(Originally posted on DailyKos)

I can’t believe it.  I’m watching MSNBC and Keith Olbermann is giving an incredibly powerful Special Comment… on gay marriage and Prop. 8.  He is literally tearing up over the hatefulness that led to the passage of Prop. 8.  He reminded us of the Loving v. Virginia case only 40 years ago, that one third of the states back then didn’t even allow interracial marriage.  Oh, and slavery, where their marriages weren’t recognized either.

Keith is making an appeal to the better angels of our humanity.  Damn powerful stuff.  Keith closed with a plea from Clarence Darrow.

I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar Khayyam. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all.

So I be written in the Book of Love,

I do not care about that Book above.

Erase my name or write it as you will,

So I be written in the Book of Love.

I also want to highlight what I wrote on Sunday in a diary about what we’re actually doing about Prop. 8 at UCLA.

Meanwhile, down here at UCLA, we Bruin Democrats just had a retreat today to discuss what the club will do for the rest of the school year, now that the election is over.  One of the main things the club decided upon is to work on restoring gay marriage in California.

We had a very productive day throwing out ideas and such.  I helped tie in some of what dday wrote about what went wrong in California.  Basically, the California Democratic Party is going to be useless, and we can’t wait around for California’s version of Barack Obama to appear to rally our troops.  We’re going to implement what Howard Dean asked of us, at a local level.

Prop. 8 passed in L.A. County by a slim margin, and that simply should not have happened.  We’re going to try to educate people here and change their minds.  First, we start a coalition at UCLA, which should be easy enough, given that over 80% of UCLA voted against Prop. 8.

Then, the hard part, reaching out into the L.A. community to educate them on the lies spread by the Yes on 8 campaign.  And for that, we’re going to need the help of local elected officials.  That’s the blueprint.  Maybe we can’t exactly make inroads into, say, Inglewood, but what about enlisting Rep. Diane Watson’s help?  Maybe the Latino community won’t listen to what UCLA students have to say, but if we can get Richard Alarcon to speak to them, would they be more receptive to the message?  For the Asian community?  How about asking Judy Chu or John Chiang for assistance there?

So yeah, call it microtargeting if you want.  But we need to make some serious inroads into those communities.  If any of y’all have more ideas, I’m all ears.

What do you guys think of our plan?  How can it be improved?

Here’s the transcript and YouTube clip of Keith’s Special Comment.  (h/t pinsomniac)  This part just says it all.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not… understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want — a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them — no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble.  You’ll even give them all the same legal rights — even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?

I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage.

If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal… in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry…black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are… gay.