California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer defeated challenger Carly Fiorina by a ten-point margin on Tuesday, winning a total of 3.8 million votes, more than the combined vote total of ten Tea Party senate candidates.
The Tea Party Senate candidates made big news, but they ran mostly in small states. Also, several lost.
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE.
California’s initiative to legalize marijuana failed to win a majority at the polls Tuesday. Prop 19, which received 3.3 million votes but lost 54 percent to 46 percent, would have would have legalized possession and cultivation of marijuana and authorized cities and counties to regulate and tax commercial marijuana production and sales.
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE
When the votes are counted on Tuesday night in California, Democrats will easily sweep the top contests. Senator Barbara Boxer is likely to defeat challenger Carly Fiorina, 51-46 per cent (Nate Silver’s projection at 538.com), and last week’s California Field poll shows Democrat Jerry Brown ahead of Republican Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial race by 10 points.
Why are the Republicans doing so badly in California, when they are anticipating sweeping victories so many other places?
. . . Continued at TheNation.com HERE.
As Californians prepare to vote Tuesday on a statewide initiative to legalize marijuana, The Jewish Journal, Los Angeles’s Jewish weekly, features a cover story on whether legal pot is good for the Jews.
The answer, in brief: the rabbis are ambivalent.
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE
As WikiLeaks prepares to release 400,000 Iraq war documents, a former FBI agent argues that WikiLeaks could have prevented 9-11, if the website had been around in 2001. . . . Continued at TheNation.com HERE.
Sarah Palin is coming to California this weekend, but the state’s top Republican candidates, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, don’t want to bee sen with her.
. . . The reason can be found in the new polls: most Californians don’t like Sarah Palin. According to last week’s Field Poll, 69 percent of the state’s independent voters say they have an “unfavorable” impression of the former Alaska governor. . . . Continued at TheNation.com HERE.
On what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, a list of my top five Lennon solo records–and they included audio and video links to Lennon’s performances of each: Audio and video HERE.
5. “God”: “I was the Walrus, but now I’m John” . . .
4. “Imagine”: We’ve heard it a thousand times, but still. . .
3. “I’m Losing You”: the strongest song on “Double Fantasy” . . .
2. “Instant Karma”: “Who do you think you are, a superstar?”
1. “Oh Yoko”: playful, passionate, and perfect.
How do you explain the value of a rock musician to the Immigration Service? Bob Dylan tried, in his letter opposing the Nixon Administration’s move to deport John Lennon. “John and Yoko,” Dylan wrote, “inspire and transcend and stimulate,” and thereby “help put an end to this mild dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as artist art by the overpowering mass media.”
TheNation.com story HERE; Dylan’s letter HERE.
The day before what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday, TERRY GROSS replayed the interview she did with me in 2000 on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” We talked about the Nixon administration’s attempt to deport Lennon in 1972 — and what the FBI files show about that effort.
Listen to streaming audio HERE.
John Updike, John Cage, Boby Dylan and Tony Curtis were among those who wrote letters to the Immigration Service in 1972 arguing that John Lennon should not be deported:
L.A. Times op-ed HERE;
copies of letters to the INS HERE ;
Bob Dylan’s handwritten letter HERE.