Poli Sci

Well, that didn’t take long. Only hours after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled California’s ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional, ProtectMarriage and other Prop 8 backers are already blaming Hollywood.

“We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way,”  senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund Brian Raum told the LA Times. “But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court.”

Love it. Aside from the fact that the notion of Hollywood money affecting a court decision is ridiculous, what exactly does Prop 8 have to do with the “expressed will of the American people?” Yes, the 9th Circuit is a U.S. court, but Prop 8 is a California issue. Love how Raum suggests the will of the two biggest population centers in the state of California should have no legitimate bearing on the affairs of California.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

We’d heard rumors that Roseanne Barr was planning on running for president, but now it’s definitely official. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen let it be known yesterday that Barr was one of 24 candidates on the official state Green Party ballot.

Can’t see her having much of a chance. But she’ll definitely pull in a lot of media attention. Which could help push the discourse left.

Yep, Louisiana Republican John Fleming really thinks Planned Parenthood is building an $8 billion “Abortionplex.” He posted a link to this fake Onion story over the weekend–only to take it down shortly thereafter. But not before Blogging Blue caught the post.

Good to see fake news keeping it real in ’12.

Ashley Powers, Nevada bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, is used to covering the news, not making it. Yesterday however, she garnered personal headlines after being mistakenly expelled from Republican caucus location Precinct 1721 in the Vegas suburb of Sun City Anthem. Before she was shown the door, one elderly attendee screamed out that she was a spy.

Powers tweeted and reported about the incident. The story was quickly picked up by AP and, of course, her Twitter feed became the repository for all kinds of intriguing follow-up.

David Montero, a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune, commiserated that the same sort of thing had happened to him in 2008. Other journalist reactions re-tweeted by Powers were more lighthearted:

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Academy Award-nominated Gasland documentarian Josh Fox was arrested Wednesday while attempting to cover a public congressional hearing on the controversial oil extraction process “fracking.” Fox was apparently not properly credentialed to cover the meeting and House Republicans ordered him arrested after he refused to stop filming the proceedings. Democracy Now has the transcripts of how it all went down.

H/T The eXiled

Longtime Agence France-Press political writer Olivier Knox has joined Yahoo News as the site’s first White House correspondent. Knox spent more than a decade at AFP and covered the White House for eight years. He will report to politics editor Chris Suellentrop.

Interesting, given Yahoo’s fairly meteoric growth in news content production in recent years, they’re just now getting a White House correspondent. Here’s hoping an enterprise investigative team comes next.

Knox, obviously, will be based in DC and will formally start his new job on February 13.

L.A. Councilman Eric Garcetti has a pretty funny Twitter impostor. It might not be up to Ruth Bourdain standards, but it’s not “Santorum” either. Garcetti’s staff seems to be taking the whole thing in stride. “The tweets are harmless,”  Garcetti spokesman Yusef Robb told the LA Times. “But we would hope people follow the authentic Eric Garcetti, so they’re getting accurate and helpful information.”

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News surrounding Julian Assange and WikiLeaks has been quiet of late. So it looks like Assange has decided to make his own news. Starting in March, the WikiLeaks founder is going to host his own interview TV show.

The theme of the show? “The world tomorrow.”

Says Assange: “Through this series I will explore the possibilities for our future in conversations with those who are shaping it. Are we heading towards utopia, or dystopia and how we can set our paths? This is an exciting opportunity to discuss the vision of my guests in a new style of show that examines their philosophies and struggles in a deeper and clearer way than has been done before.”

The series is set for 10 half-hour episodes and will air weekly. WikiLeaks says that “licensing commitments cover over 600 million viewers across cable, satellite and terrestrial broadcast networks,” but gives no specifics about where the show will air.

It’s official. Actors in Los Angeles city limits will now be required to wear condoms while performing sex scenes in porn shoots. The LA City Council passed the controversial measure by a 9-1 vote yesterday. Needless to say, the porn industry was not pleased.

“We want to work with government to find solutions to real problems, but are determined never to submit to a City Council—or a county, state or federal government, for that matter—that believes it can impose its will on us in direct violation of our rights as consenting adults,” Adult Video News chief executive Theo Sapoutzis said in a statement. “This is an act that cannot go unchallenged.”

Could this be the issue that finally sparks a San Fernando Valley secession from LA? Stranger things have happened.

Much is being made today about a CBSLA report of the policing and reparation expenses faced by the city as a result of Occupy LA. According to the item, $700,000 in policing was required to evict protesters and another $400,000 will be needed to repair the lawn where the encampment was pitched.

The policing amount seems plausible; with 1,400 officers deployed on eviction night, it works out to an average of $500 per officer, and that’s without factoring in any other law enforcement related expenses for the operation. But $400,000 to fix a lawn? Either a zero has been accidentally added to the landscaping number or working as a gardener for the city of LA is more lucrative than we imagined. Reaction from readers has been swift:

Eric Slowik: What are they using for grass seed? Diamonds ?

Wayne: For $400,000, they could cover the entire state of Rhode Island. The number is silly.

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