Nov 29 2011
Civic Circus – 11/29/11
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Civic Circus with Ankur Patel breaks down local politics, with a weekly report on city, county, and state bureaucracies.
Welcome to Civic Circus, this is Ankur Patel breaking down local politics, going to three hour meetings so you don’t have to. This week I am going to give you a report on the municipal elections held on November 8th.
Some people may have already forgotten what they voted for, and based on the 13.8% voter turnout, here is a quick background.
With over 500 political districts and 4,300,000 registered voters, Los Angeles County is some of the most complicated political geography in the country. With federal, state, county, and city government already confusing enough to most people, we have to remember school and water districts have their own elected officials as well.
There were …
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Since the Occupy Los Angeles encampment began on October 1st it has grown into, arguably, the biggest in the nation with nearly 500 tents occupying the space in front of City Hall. However, more than a week after a majority of tent cities around the country were evicted – many of them violently – the LAPD gave local activists a deadline of one minute past midnight last night to remove their tents. The city distributed flyers in Spanish and English to inform activists of the deadline, and offered 50 shelter beds for homeless people among the campers. The uniquely cordial relationship between police and protesters in LA seems to be coming to an end. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told the press, “I have no illusions that everybody is going to leave. We …
India is the world’s largest democracy, and along with the US, the two nations are global symbols of liberal democracies – countries where the practice of torture would ordinarily be expected to be anathema. How does torture become acceptable within the political framework of a democracy where people are ruled by their consent? Is it a paradox, an aberration? Is it a standard by which to measure the strength of a democracy? 
When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 he pledged to reject the use of torture in war. When he took office he signed an Executive Order expressly prohibiting torture. But, in the years since, he has turned down three opportunities to formalize torture prohibition. According to Eric Lewis writing for the New York Times on November 21st, Obama “has made it clear that criminal prosecutions for torture will not go forward; he has opposed the creation of a truth commission to examine events comprehensively; and he has affirmatively intervened to stop civil litigation by detainees against their torturers.” As Republican candidates for President debate each other, the acceptability of torture as a tactic of war is once more up for discussion. Michele Bachmann in a debate in mid-November declared, “If …
Just two days after Black Friday, the most advertised shopping day of the year, retailers are again courting shoppers today with promises of big discounts — online. It’s Cyber Monday dubbed for the jump in website sales that became a tradition in recent years. Last year Cyber Monday shoppers spent a record $1 billion. This past weekend Black Friday sales broke a record totaling $52.4 billion. According to the National Retail Federation, 226 million shoppers made purchases on Friday, up from 212 million bargain hunters last year. A whopping 37% of total spending was done online. Nearly 40% of shoppers spent their holiday money on electronics and over 48% of shoppers went to department stores. Some observers call the increase in spending this year compared to last a sign of economic …
