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The ballot item, Measure R, spearheaded by actor, director and producer Rob Reiner and backed by entertainment-industry figures including Barbra Streisand, Tom Hanks and David Geffen, passed with 59 percent of the vote, according to election results released today.

IS Militants banning cigarette in Mosul News / World IS Punishes Cigarette Traders in Mosul 11.09.2014 Mahnaz RamazanBasNews, Erbil  Islamic State militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul have vowed to punish anyone who sells cigarettes.   The Sunni militant group had already set out a number of laws in their wathiqat al-madina (charter of the city) that they presented to the people of Mosul back in early June.   Those who steal are punished by having their hands chopped off. The five daily prayers of Islam are mandatory for everyone. Drugs, alcohol and cigarettes are forbidden, as...

Boko Haram has seized control of a town in northeastern Nigeria, the latest to fall into Islamist hands in the crisis-hit region and an indication of the group's increasing territorial ambitions. The insurgents have tended to use hit-and-run attacks in the past but the recent seizure of towns suggests a significant shift in strategy, more in keeping with their stated goal of carving out a strict Islamic state in northeastern Nigeria. Residents who fled the assault on the fallen town of Buni Yadi in Yobe state said attacks began late last month and the insurgents have since taken over the...

Michael Chapman at our sister site CNSNews.com reported that Hollywood director Rob Reiner unleashed another anti-Tea Party rant in an interview with Larry King. He compared the Tea Party to the terrorist group Hamas, because apparently both groups are extreme and cannot be negotiated with, and the only solution is to make them go away or “eliminate” them. In Israel, “[Y]ou can’t negotiate with that, you have to say either Hamas goes away and the Palestinian authority takes over all that region and deal with some kind of honest broker here, and create the two-state solution,” said Reiner. The Palestinians...

Hollywood director and liberal activist Rob Reiner told talk-show host Larry King that the Tea Party is like the terrorist group Hamas, because apparently both groups are extreme and cannot be negotiated with, and the only solution is to make them go away or “eliminate” them. “[Y]ou can’t negotiate with that, you have to say either Hamas goes away and the Palestinian authority takes over all that region and deal with some kind of honest broker here, and create the two-state solution,” said Reiner. Drawing a parallel with the Tea Party, he said, “anytime you’re dealing with an extreme group,...

Thursday on Ora TV's "PoliticKing with Larry King," left-leaning actor and director Rob Reiner compared the designated terrorist group Hamas to the American political conservative movement, the Tea Party.

The media drumbeat for Hillary Clinton to be the next president is truly nauseating. Consider Rob Reiner, aka Meathead in the famed sitcom All in the Family, saying on HBO’s Real Time Friday, “If she decides to run, you will have the single most qualified person ever to run for President of the United States” Rob Reiner aka Meathead: Hillary Would Be ‘Most Qualified Person Ever to Run for President’ Now take a moment to consider the absurdity of that statement. Because Hillary was senator for eight years and Secretary of State for four, she’s the most qualified person EVER...

Hyping "growing support" for same-sex marriage, CNN's Carol Costello asked a supporter of California's Proposition 8 on Monday if he was "on the wrong side of history" for legally defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Her tone fits right with Friday's CNN panel where a traditional marriage supporter was disgustingly marginalized as a segregationist and compared to a slave owner. Costello cited GOP strategist Karl Rove admitting that he could see a Republican presidential candidate publicly support same-sex marriage in 2016. She then asked Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund, "Austin, you heard what Karl Rove...

Gay Marriage Effort Attracts a Novel Group of Donors ADAM NAGOURNEY and BROOKS BARNES March 23, 2012 LOS ANGELES — On a warm Friday afternoon three years ago, Rob Reiner, the director, arrived for lunch at the Beverly Hills estate of David Geffen, the entertainment mogul. Mr. Reiner and his political adviser, Chad H. Griffin, had spent six months drafting an ambitious legal campaign aimed at persuading the United States Supreme Court to establish a constitutional right of same-sex marriage. Mr. Reiner, joined by Mr. Griffin and Mr. Reiner’s wife, Michele, told Mr. Geffen they would need $3 million to...

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations. The administration's discussion of Wilson's link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial. *snip* He mentioned in...

SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- Director Rob Reiner is back on the campaign trail — and he's not happy about it. Reiner told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he has joined forces with children's advocates to defeat a measure on next month's special election ballot. Proposition 1D would steer money away from a childhood development program Reiner championed a decade ago. The "When Harry Met Sally" filmmaker criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California lawmakers for their management of state finances. "They failed miserably," he said. "So now what are they going to do? The thing that they always do. They try...

Among the special election propositions that Californians will consider as part of the 2009-10 budget plan is a measure that puts at odds the needs and interests of two groups responsible for providing much of the preschool education offered in San Joaquin County. Voters in 1998 approved the 50-cent-per-pack tobacco tax that sends millions of dollars to First 5 commissions throughout the state to pay for health and education programs focused on children 5 and younger. Proposition 1D, which will appear on the May 19 ballot, seeks to help fill California's gaping budget hole by sending much of that tobacco-tax...

At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute $1 million or more apiece to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up over the past three decades. The money will be channeled through a new partnership called the Democracy Alliance, which was founded last spring -- the latest in a series of liberal initiatives as the Democratic Party and its allies continue to struggle with the loss of the House and the Senate in 1994 and the presidency in 2000. Many influential Democratic contributors were left angry and despairing...

Film director Reiner endorses Clinton The Associated Press Article Launched: 09/27/2007 04:48:19 AM PDT LOS ANGELES—Director Rob Reiner has endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. "Every one of the Democratic candidates is strong, but Hillary is head and shoulders above the rest," Reiner said Wednesday

Does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remember what happened in the 2006 elections? She represents the people’s republic of San Francisco, but she must recall that the rest of California overwhelmingly rejected ex-actor/director Rob Reiner’s government-run universal preschool initiative last June. Yet, at her recent children’s summit, Pelosi ushered in a parade of notables advocating for more government preschool. In her remarks at the summit, Pelosi pushed for more government spending on early childhood initiatives, saying: “We know that these investments in our children today pay off many-fold in later years.” To back up this claim, keynote speaker James Heckman, a...

A taxpayer-funded commission headed by Hollywood producer Rob Reiner awarded media contracts totaling more than $77 million without sufficiently reviewing their costs and was lax in overseeing its deals, California's state auditor reported Tuesday. Poor oversight of its bills also led the California Children and Families Commission, or First 5, to pay $673,000 in fees and expenses that were prohibited under its own contract and make "questionable payments to contractors for items such as laptop computers valued at $10,000, food catering costs, and monthly parking fees," the report found. But the auditor concluded the commission did not violate state law...

state commission chaired by Hollywood entertainer Rob Reiner suffered from lapses in its contracting, failed to properly award millions of dollars and did not adequately justify many of its payments, according to a state audit released today. The nonpartisan California Bureau of State Audits found that the California Children and Families Commission, also known as the California First 5 Commission, used tax money to overpay for some services and failed to follow state rules when it awarded some contracts. Among its findings, the audit said the commission: Did not follow state policy when it used a competitive process to award...

Reiner: Gibson, Come Clean on `Passion' LOS ANGELES (AP) - Mel Gibson's apology for making drunken anti-Semitic remarks isn't enough to redeem him, actor-producer Rob Reiner said. The actor also must acknowledge that "his work reflects anti-Semitism," particularly the 2004 hit movie "The Passion of the Christ," Reiner told Associated Press Radio. "When he comes to the understanding that he has done that, and can come out and say, you know, 'My views have been reflected in my work and I feel bad that I've done that,' then that will be the beginning of some reconciliation for him," Reiner said....

(AP) Mel Gibson's apology for making drunken anti-Semitic remarks isn't enough to redeem him, actor-producer Rob Reiner said. The actor also must acknowledge that "his work reflects anti-Semitism," particularly the 2004 hit movie "The Passion of the Christ," Reiner told Associated Press Radio.

In her 11 years as Sacramento County district attorney, Jan Scully has cultivated a reputation as a no-nonsense law-and-order type. California taxpayers are about to find out if it's a reputation she deserves. In March, Attorney General Bill Lockyer – citing a conflict of interest – turned to Scully and asked her to review the First 5 California Children and Families Commission's use of $23 million for TV ads promoting “preschool for all” at the same time a “preschool for all” initiative was seeking placement on the ballot and voter support. State law makes it a felony to use public...