Showing posts with label California. Show all posts
Showing posts with label California. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Kamala Harris Elected Attorney General of California


San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, in front of City Hall on November 12, 2008 who filed for 2010 campaign for Attorney General.
---Photo by Mona T. Brooks / monabrooks.com


from the L.A. Weekly
Kamala Harris Defeats Steve Cooley For California Attorney General

We've been saying for a while that the math didn't look good for Steve Cooley. But now we can go ahead and make it official.

Steve Cooley has lost. Kamala Harris will be the next attorney general of California.

Out of an abundance of laziness caution, we've held off until now. But we're getting tired of waiting for the AP to call this thing, and Eric Garcetti has already beaten us to the punch anyway.

A mathematical explanation/justification after the jump.

The Secretary of State's office has been keeping track of the uncounted ballots on its website. That report lists 394,000 untabulated votes as of this morning, but that's out of date. There are no more than 154,000 ballots remaining, and there are probably less. Update at 2:50 p.m.: With updates from four counties, there are now 124,000 ballots left, at most. (Explanation below.)

The county websites have more up-to-date figures in some cases than the Secretary of State. Using those numbers, we can say that Harris is leading by 49,535 votes. (2:50 update: 51,141 votes.) Given the geographic breakdown of the remaining uncounted ballots, we expect her to expand her lead by another 10,000 votes or so, ending up with a margin of six tenths of a percent (46.0-45.4).

In order to win the race, Cooley would have to win the remaining uncounted votes by a margin of 66-26. (Update at 2:50: Cooley would now have to win by 72-20.) The likelihood of that happening is extremely close to zero. One of his best counties was Orange County, and his margin there was only 60-31.

​If we knew nothing about the remaining ballots, you might say that Cooley has at least a chance. But we do know where the ballots are coming from -- they're mostly from counties that favored Harris -- and we know that they're mostly provisionals, which have also favored Harris.

We'd expect Harris to win the remaining votes by a tally of about 50-42. That's just based on geography and doesn't factor in her advantage from provisionals.

We now have much more information about how this race will end up than the AP and the L.A. Times did when they called the governor's race for Jerry Brown at the stroke of 8 p.m. on Election Night.

It's time to call it. Harris has won.


Congratulations, Ms. Harris. Job well done.

Friday, April 24, 2009

What a Hateful Liberal Bigot Looks Like

They have always existed, but they have become more emboldened with the recent leftward lurch in American political direction. I am talking today about liberal bigots, those lefties who are not only obstinately or intolerantly devoted to their own opinions and prejudices, but who also regard and treat those who disagree with them with vitriolic hatred. You frequently hear them harping about wanting freedom of speech, the right to express their opinions and viewpoints publicly, even the right to have their alternative lifestyles accepted by the mainstream public as 'normal' or at least 'acceptable'. But this freedom of speech, this right to express opinions and viewpoints, can never, ever extend to those who disagree with them. Perfect case in point came this past weekend with the Miss USA pageant questioning incident. As I previously discussed in another recent post, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, was a contestant in the pageant. She is a beauty queen, a model, and she had a simple goal, to win a beauty pageant title. She wasn't looking to change the world on Sunday night, and certainly when it came to the question-answer stage she did not expect a controversial question on an epic hot-button sociological and moral topic. In any event, that is exactly what she received from pageant judge Mario Lavandeira, who goes by the professional name of 'Perez Hilton'. Lavandeira is a gay activist and celebrity blogger, and basically asked Prejean whether she supported 'gay marriage', and to give the reasons behind whatever her feelings were on the issue. Carrie Prejean simply replied from her heart, basically saying that she did not support the idea, that she believed marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and that basically this was how she was raised, taught, and now fundamentally believed. In the immediate aftermath of the pageant, at which she nearly won, finishing as the first runner-up, Hilton said that Prejean was a 'cunt', and then took to the internet and video-blogged that Hilton lost because she was "a dumb bitch." So in other words, Hilton as a gay activist has a right to voice his opinion on the issue, and the mainstream American public is supposed to tolerate not only that viewpoint, but also his public expression of it. But the same right is not extended to Carrie Prejean. Because she disagrees with Hilton on this issue, and because she had the audacity to answer his question with honesty, she is pilloried as some sort of bigot and neanderthal thinker, and then called names as well? How far does this freedom of expression, this right to your own viewpoints go, Mr. Hilton? And it wasn't just Perez Hilton, but also most of the 'gay rights' movement, and in fact most liberals as well, who ganged up on Carrie Prejean. In doing so they exposed themselves publicly for what they really are, a group of hateful bigots, everything that they claim to be against. This is the United States of America, and we are supposed to celebrate, support, and grow from the expression of differing opinions, not denounce them with hatred, ignorance, and profanity. It isn't as if Carrie Prejean said that any gay who actually got married should go to hell. She didn't say they should be arrested, tortured, or even publicly embarrassed if they tried to marry. She did not express that she didn't like gay people in general, and didn't call them any names. In short, she said nothing that would incite hatred or intolerance of gays. She simply answered the question put to her regarding the issue of marriage, stating that it should be between a man and a woman, which it should. Not an opinion, but a fact since the early days of man, and one that has only gained any public forum at all since the fringe gay element of society began imposing it's radical views on the vast mainstream 'straight' majority just a few decades ago. Carrie Prejean simply answered a direct question without lambasting or profaning anyone, but the response that she received in reply has been what we have come to typically expect from the liberal community. We conservatives love an open debate, love ideas expressed in public, and embrace the notion of having them put to the test of a vote. That is the true spirit of American freedom and diversity and exceptionalism at work. There are groups who have wanted that freedom of speech repressed in the past: Nazis, Communists, and brutal dictators of all stripes go this way. Add now to that group the ultra-liberal bigots who want anyone shut up and shut down who does not agree with them, from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to Ann Coulter to Carrie Prejean. For anyone out there who agreed with Perez Hilton's response to Carrie Prejean, not his view on the topic of gay marriage, but with his response to Sunday night's question-answer session, then you can count yourself in that group of liberal bigots. NOTE: As with every entry at this Blog, there is a 'Comments' button below. You can do so anonymously, but it would be appreciated if you had the courage of your convictions to add at least a real name.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

California's Sane Marriage Proposal

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept, and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof; And the rib, which the Lord had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of Man.' Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." - Genesis 2:21-24 **** Let's face it, no matter what the radicals, the profane, and the borderline insane will try to tell you, there are two sexes. They are male and female, just as Adam and Eve in the Genesis creation story. The main differences are their physical and sexual characteristics. Man was created with a penis and sperm. Woman was created with a vagina and eggs. For anyone who thinks normally and rationally, the ramifications are obvious. Genesis explains in clear terms how God created man, and then created woman for a purpose. That clear purpose is that the two different sexes will unite together as one. This is the origin of the concepts of marriage, the very concept of family itself. Throughout the history of mankind it has always been understood that the natural order called on men and women to join, have children, nurture those children in family, and propagate their genes to help foster the growth of mankind. There have always been those among us who were deviant, and rather than become attracted to those of the opposite sex, they were instead attracted to those of the same sex. But this was always, in every culture in man's history, considered a deviance, a negative to be avoided. It was considered an extremely unnatural act, the joining of two people of the same sex in a sexual union. For the vast majority of the history of the United States of America, almost 200 of our 232 years as a nation, this 'homosexuality' was seen as a form of mental illness. In the past three decades, this deviance has 'come out of the closet' and attempted to shove its way into mainstream society. Those who practice homosexuality have used a liberal tilt in American media and the court system to gain perceived 'Rights' that were never enumerated into the Constitution. In some states, they have even fought to gain a right to marry. In every corner of the world, marriage has always been recognized as the institution whereby a man and woman formally come together as one family. The homosexuals, or 'gays', and other liberal elements have attempted to make marriage, now legal only between men and women as it is naturally and morally correct, extend to these gay couples. This past week, tens of millions of Americans voted in three states on this issue, and once again sanity won the day. Florida, Arizona, and most interestingly and importantly California joined what is now a list of 30 states across the nation by installing specific constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. This past week in California, 'Proposition 8' created that same ban in what is considered the most progressive state in the union. The majority in even this normally ultra-liberal state recognized and voted to constitutionalize this vital institution. Back in 2000, the people of California had already spoken, and had created a law to ban gay marriages. However, the most liberal and radical U.S. district court in the land ruled the law itself illegal, and opened the way for legalized gay marriages, hundreds of which took place in recent months. The people of California, outraged that a court over-ruled their will, went back to the drawing board and took the matter out of the courts hands. The new law is now a basic element in the state constitution, which the court cannot alter. The people of California have thus clearly spoken twice in the past decade on this issue, as has the American population in every instance in which it has come before them. You can argue the sanity of the minute percentage of the population who practice homosexuality. You can argue about the merits of accepting this deviance rather than shunning it. You can argue the validity of trying to find some 'cure' through the increased research possibilities with today's genetic advances. But one thing that you cannot argue is the natural order in the man-woman relationship, and its historical, cultural, and moral expression in the institution of marriage. Allow a misguided gay man to simply do what he wants and marry another man, just because he thinks that he should be allowed to, is ludicrous on its face. Tell me you have a 'right' to do this, and I will ask you why I cannot have the 'right' to marry a 14-year old girl, or my good dog 'Petey', or my refrigerator. Think that is ridiculous? That is just how ridiculous the large majority of Americans view the idea of gay marriage. In an election that saw progressives come to political power, Californians and others once again showed sanity this past week in supporting the tradition of marriage. This not about any 'hate' towards these people, as they would try to sell it. I speak for millions in saying that far from hating gays, we feel sorry for them, recognize that their 'problem' is biological and possibly genetic, and hope that one day they will overcome these deviant desires. What this is about is defending a Sacrament from becoming defiled by deviance. The Church teaches that Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman, one of its Sacraments, the most important and fundamental building blocks of the faith and mankind's morality. Thankfully Americans still agree that a man shall leave his parents and cling to his wife, and not his husband or his child or his pet.