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Hey, our friends! Don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s an election coming up! It is, we’ve been assured, THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIMES. That does sound important, doesn’t it? But what about 2012, when we have to choose between Sarah Palin and membership in Barack Obama’s New World Order Socialist Muslim Kenyan Taliban Islamofascist Jihad? Is it more important than that?

We at CityBeat are proud to be the city’s only alt-weekly that still makes endorsements. (We’re also proud to be the city’s only alt-weekly. How’s Culver City treating you, Other Guy?) Endorsements, though. Sure, they’re a way to wank off to the sound of our own pronouncements handed down from the great height of our moral certitude. And sure, you could probably guess where we’re going to stand on just about any old thing. And yeah ... well, nothing. Just yeah.

President
That One.
Yes, Barack Obama is a magnificent human being. He is smarter, prettier, and better-dressed than you, and he can shoot threes from way downtown. When he went to Europe and the Middle East, they treated him like he was King of the World. The king of Jordan drove him to the airport – physically drove him, like, behind the wheel of his kingmobile – himself. People could not get enough of the Good Time Happy Face Reunion World Tour. This is, in fact, a good thing. See, there used to be a time when people loved us – people besides Pinochet and Yakov Smirnoff. That could happen again. What a country!

Obama’s not a stupid guy. He’s not gonna fuck off during Katrina or when he’s informed Bin Laden is determined to strike inside the U.S. (“You’ve covered your ass now,” Bush sneered to the guy who’d come special to Crawford to brief him on the hair-on-fire Al Qaeda chatter. That is real and true.) The worst thing he’ll do is maybe get a little centrist. He’ll maybe pander a little. (In fact, he already has.) He’s definitely going to be given to secrecy, though it’s empirically impossible for him to be more secretive than the guy we got now. And as long as he doesn’t Sista Souljah another Welfare Act to get those Cadillac-drivin’ welfare queens like Reagan never could – as long as he’s just sort of centrist as opposed to shitty Clinton Third Way – we will stand behind him even when he calls for “clean coal.” (We will then cheerfully and sedately register our opposition and calmly rally our Daily Kos.)

So Obama’s swell and awesome, and we know that already. Everybody knows that already. Some dude had to take his name off all McCain’s advisory committee letters last week, because he’d just voted Obama.

But even better than having Barack Obama and his beautiful family reclaiming the White House for decency and elegance and grace is the prospect of having Old Handsome Joe in the Naval Observatory. We love Joe Biden with a love that’s pure and true. He doesn’t pander; he speaks his truth, even when it’s best left unsaid. He’s sentimental – even maudlin – like the best drunken Irishmen. He’s passionate, and yelly, and even when he knows he’s right (which is always) he doesn’t condescend. Fuckin’ Joe Biden, man. He’s all right.

THE PROPOSITIONS

Prop. 1: High Speed Rail Bonds.
Hello, San Francisco!
We hear you whining. We hear it loud and clear: “Hey, man, we’re busted! We ain’t got no bread for these fancy high-speed trains and such! Also, I will fix your rack if you’ll take Jack my dog!” We sympathize. We do. We’re one of those fiscal-conservative, personal-responsibility types who believe in actually paying for what we consume. By which we mean: We’re liberals.

So why are we getting all groovy on these sexy, sleek high speed bullet trains? We say unto you: Infrastructure, baby. Infrastructure. Ask Roosevelt: Nothing better for what ails that little Depression then spending big – remember that stupid “economic stimulus check,” or “Wal-Mart heirs relief fund” this summer, where you got 600 clams and immediately spent it on Nikes? See, that was $150 billion that was supposed to shock the system back to solvency, but all it did was force Chinese factory children to work triple shifts. Spending is good in times like these – but only if it doesn’t go to some crap consumer bullshit that’s gonna wear out in a few months, and instead goes to something that benefits all of us and actually creates American jobs. While we’re at it, it would be nice to fix some bridges, too. But now we’re just talking crazy.

Prop. 1A: Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond
Act. Yes on this too!
The only bigger dick in the California Legislature than Tom “Senor the Devil” McClintock is Chuck Devore. He’s one of your typical “drown government in a bathtub” types, he worked in the Reagan administration somewhere shifty in South America (Honduras, if we remember correctly, and we do) to arm the Contras and presumably help John Negroponte singlehandedly invent the death squad (every time we’ve asked, he’s simply ignored the question), and he is, in fact, a flesh-eating zombie succubus. He and Tom McClintock are the biggest names in the voter pamphlet rallying against Prop. 1A – that is, besides the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which was like the Battalion 316 Death Squad of California’s public school system, burying it in a mass grave with its brilliant Prop. 13. Hey, thanks, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association! See you in hell!

Prop. 2: Standards for Confining
Farm Animals. Yes.
Chickens and veals and pregnant pigs are not random Afghanis sold by their neighbors to the fine folks at Guantanamo: There’s no reason to torture our food before we eat it.

Yes, a penny an egg is costlier than it sounds – remember, those farmworkers picking tomatoes for Taco Bell wanted an extra penny a pound, which apparently would have absolutely broken the megalith fast food company that owns the Bell, at least until they decided it wouldn’t.

CityBeat isn’t all PETA and shit – we believe in animal testing, and meat, and soft, luxurious mink fur to keep us warm when we’ve turned the air conditioner on full-blast on those hot summer nights. But like the bad guy in The Long Kiss Goodnight (not the then-hot, pre-bloat Craig Bierko, but some other, random bad guy) who gave sexy amnesiac assassin Geena Davis’s tiny pathetic waif daughter a doll before locking her into a meat vault TO DIE, well, we’re not a complete monster.

Prop. 3: Children’s Hospital Bond Act.
Yes. For the children.
While we’re at it, can we get one of those fancy National Health Service cashier windows that just exist to give you cab fare home, like in Sicko? That’d be awesome, thanks.

Prop. 4: Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy.
No.
One of our favorite parts of the last presidential debate was watching undecided Ohio lady voters’ squiggly lines on CNN max out when Barack Obama started talking ’bout ’bortion. We’d forgotten that, despite the keening caterwauls of the You Killed A Baby Brigade, even undecided lady voters in Ohio want the government out of their parts.

Now, we’re not one of those feminists who think pro-life people are necessarily Christianist paternalist wackos who believe ownership of a woman transfers from her father to her husband. We have, in the past, been pro-life ourselves, until we just couldn’t hack the hypocrisy of all our pro-life compadres spitting on unwed mothers and considering welfare “theft.” (Unwed motherhood only being admirable when it comes to teenage Palins.) We believe people of goodwill can disagree when it comes to abortion – in fact, on some days, we disagree with ourself.

But if anyone should have abortion on demand – no waiting period, no notification, not even a copay! – it’s the teens, who can’t very well loiter in the liquor-store parking lot with a baby on their tit. Abortions for everyone! In fact, they should come with an iPod.

The last time this initiative came down the pike, we asked our pro-life Catholic mama how she’d be voting. “Against,” she said serenely, and we were surprised. Why? “Because teenagers shouldn’t have to tell their parents shit.”

Prop. 5: Nonviolent Drug Offenses. Sentencing, Parole, and Rehabilitation.
Pass the Dutchie.
Since nobody in the Lege can vote for anything that smacks of soft on crime, it’s up to us to do it for them. Added bonus? Decriminalizing the devil’s weed! Now your dimebag’s an infraction. Party on.

Prop. 6: Police and Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Penalties and Laws.
Fuck tha police, and please stop calling us to contribute to your bullshit after-school slush fund and then yelling at us when we say no.
Police already retire when they’re like 40, and then get a full pension while they work other jobs (kind of like how John McCain gets almost $60 thousand every year in a “disability pension” while also collecting his full pay as a senator and being married to a lady, recently delightfully referred to as a “small businesswoman,” who owns the country’s third-largest beer distributorship and a hundred million smackers).

Why else are we sort of against the po-po commandeering a billion bones a year out of our general fund? Well, there’s how they’re always beating people, for one. Even Christina Gonzales – the woman responsible for the two most grievous acts of “journalism” we’ve ever witnessed, once training her camera on a woman whose husband had just killed their four children as she paced like a defeated animal back and forth, and once whispering that another such family had asked the media to respect their privacy, so they were respecting their privacy from all the way across the street – even she shouldn’t get her ass beat by cops.

In addition to the funding, this little doozy makes 30 changes in criminal law, all under cover of “gang prevention,” including making it easier to try juveniles as adults and an insouciantly unconstitutional push to make hearsay admissible. This is an ugly one, folks, and it is giving your bigotty hang ’em high neighbor a raging law & order boner. And that is something you don’t want to see.

Prop. 7: Renewable Energy Generation.
Ha ha, good try, but no.
In most cases, you can pretty well figure out how you’re voting by who’s fer and agin it. But John Burton and Dolores Huerta (our two true loves), you’re on the wrong side of this. Yes, almost all of us want solar and wind power (except probably for Tom McClintock and Chuck Devore), but this badly written initiative forces small renewables companies out of competition to make way for whatever Exxon names its wind farm.

Prop. 8: Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.
Are you an asshole? No, seriously, are you?
If so, by all means, please vote yes on Prop. 8. Then get a bag of dicks, and eat it.

Prop. 9: Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights. Parole.
Eh. If you say so, whatever.
If we at CityBeat were constantly getting victimized by crime (besides crimes of love!), we would probably care about this. Since we’re not, we don’t. If you’re all into this, then you should vote for it. Whatever.

Prop. 10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy.
Nope.
The T. Boone Pickens Enrichment Act of 2008 would give even more dough to the guy who gave $3 million to the Swiftboaters (by diverting tax money to rebates for cars that run on natural gas – but not for electric cars or hybrids). Remember this year how fun it was watching Barack get all Brewster’s Millions trying to spend three-quarters of a billion dollars? Remember when he started advertising in video games? Good times. So with this bitchen money advantage, let’s enjoy it and stop giving billions in taxpayer funds to right wing nut-tards with which to defame ... well, John Kerry, but still.

Prop. 11: Redistricting.
Oh, why not?
Good government people seem to like this one, and it doesn’t bother us. Go for it!

Prop. 12: Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008.
Yes, sir! (May we have another!)
Hey, you know who loves veterans? Democrats do. You know who makes fun of their Purple Hearts and then when they come home all PTSD claims they were mentally ill before they enlisted and so are ineligible for VA services? Republicans.

Congress

Tell you what: Just vote for the Democrat.* We know you think you’re being politically sophisticated when you claim to love divided government, but you know what? You’re really quite stupid.

See, we already have a check on the runaway passions of the people – the Senate. It’s made to go slowly and listen to itself talk and put the brakes on when any of those cute Congresspeople get too crazy to one side. (We also have a Supreme Court, which is supposed to do the same thing, and someday might.) If you elect Obama to change all the shit that Bush did, you have to have a Congress that will actually let him. See how that works? You do? We take it back. You’re hardly stupid at all!

*Except in the 37th. Democratic Congresswoman Laura Richardson is a disgrace – like, bad – who mismanaged her own affairs so extravagantly it seemed to verge on fraud. The only thing that kept us from more thoroughly enjoying the details as it emerged she was in foreclosure on all three of her houses, and owed back taxes, and had liens, and was just a disgusting excuse for a human, was the fact that the other Richardson haters commenting on newspaper articles about her would invariably make it about how they (the commenters) were totally victimized by her blackness and the Black Power Structure Elite. It ain’t just the coal miners in West Virginia, people – they live among us. Be very afraid. So, if you live in the 37th, be sure to write in Peter Mathews. He’s the dude in the VW bus who’s been running for what seems like 12 cycles. It’s time he won.

State Senate and Assembly

Whatever Anonymous Dem Will Serve You.
There’s nobody totally disgusting running in need of a Richardson smackdown, so just vote Dem so they can maybe pass a budget on time. (It takes two-thirds to pass it, and Chuck Devore and his band of frothy nutsacks are constantly gumming up the works.) We’re tired of never having a budget. Aren’t you?

Supervisor, District 2

Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Never did like Bernard Parks. There were the optics – he always looked like he had a stick up his ass from his 38 years in the LAPD, culminating in his lousy job as police chief. Ridley-Thomas? Eh. He has the union label. Si, se puede, good, fine, viva. We just can’t get worked up about this election between two very boring, stodgy, un-batshit people; nor do we particularly care about the little fiefdoms of the L.A. Board of Supervisors. Call us when you get all South Gate up in there and start throwing punches. Those were the days.

Prop. A: Gang & Youth Violence Prevention, After-School & Job Training Programs. Yes.
Oh, are the homeowners all upset they might have to pay $36 a year for nice after-school services? Well, fuck you, homeowners. We at CityBeat are sick and tired of all the boo-hooing for you, and how you can’t pay your mortgage because you SPENT TOO MUCH MONEY YOU DIDN’T HAVE BECAUSE YOU’RE AN IDIOT. You know who didn’t do that? Renters. Who’s crying for renters? Nobody. It would have been soooo nice to hear the word “renter” even once in each of the four presidential debates when they wept baby Jesus tears for people with “mortgages” who can’t stay in “their” houses. So pony up your $36 per parcel. You know you’re raising your tenants’ rent anyway. And then all the nice little children in the public schools you raped by voting for Prop. 13 can maybe be a little less gangy and maybe mug you a little less often. Maybe.

Prop. B: Update of Low Rent Housing Authorization. Yes.
You don’t need us to actually explain this, right? Oh, Christ. Go away.

Measure R: Traffic Relief / Rail Extensions / Reduce Foreign Oil Dependence. Yes.
We have listened as you’ve said rail is a sop to the middle class and it’s not fair to the poor people of the fake-o Busriders Union. Guess what? The poor are never going to get something before the middle class does, just like the middle class is never going to get whatever awesome thing it is the rich get (food? health care? seven houses? relations with an attractive member of whichever sex you’re digging?), and the rich are never going to get to not go to hell.

So let’s get some sweet new rail lines, and get some of the cars off the freeway, and that way, when the poor have to commute in from Palmdale or whatever in their sad beater wagons, they will end up working only a 14-hour day (with commute) for subsistence wages instead of an 18-hour one, and their shitty $300 cars will probably overheat less in all that lack of traffic!

Also? Infrastructure, baby! Yay!