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Archives for April 2013

Initiative Seeks to Bring California In Line with Other Oil Producing States

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Californians for Responsible Economic Development pushing ballot initiative to create oil and gas severance tax

by Andy Cohen

North Dakota does it. Louisiana does it. Florida too, and Alaska. Even Texas has an oil and gas severance tax, which largely funds state government there. Alaska is almost entirely dependent on their oil severance tax.

But in California, no such tax exists. California, unlike just about every other oil producing state in the U.S., practically gives away its natural resources to private industry. That could change, however, by way of the 2014 midterm elections.

The group Californians for Responsible Economic Development hopes to bring an initiative to California voters in 2014 that will impose a 9.5% severance tax on any and all oil and natural gas extracted from California land or coastal waters, a fairly modest proposal in comparison to other states. The fee in North Dakota, for example, is 11.5%. In Louisiana the rate tacks up to 12.5%. In Alaska, oil companies are dinged at the rate of 25-50% of the net value of the oil and gas extracted. California is clearly missing out on a massive revenue opportunity for state coffers.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Hell Froze Over: UT-San Diego Endorsed Labor Leader Lorena Gonzalez

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By Doug Porter 

I checked the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fools Day this morning after reading an editorial in UT-San Diego endorsing Lorena Gonzalez in the race for the 80th District Assembly seat.

There are, after all, only two Democrats, officially in the race and I fully expected the paper would pass up the opportunity to say anything encouraging about either of them. (There is, I’m told, also a write-in campaign by a Republican.)

Their endorsement was apparently triggered by Gonzalez’s positions on ‘job creation’.  Rather than play into the conservative meme that ‘jobs’ and ‘the environment’ are mutually exclusive propositions, she told them during an extensive interview that policies  respecting both are possible.

As much as I hate to do this, I’m going to agree with the UT-San Diego’s choice of candidates in this race, although for different reasons.  Lorena Gonzalez has done a terrific job of actually ‘leading’ labor in this town into areas way outside their traditional comfort zone.

I don’t know how the UT-SD missed this, but her efforts to get out the vote and involvement with grassroots organizing outside the walls of the Labor Council offices are a major reason why Democrats are an ascendant force in this town.

If she was smart enough to fool them, just think how good she’ll be with those dumbasses up in Sacramento.

INSIDE: Fighting Test to the Test, Junior Seau’s Brain, and the GOP’s Rube Goldberg Immigration plan.   [Read more…]

Pershing Drive Bicycling: Let’s Make It Safe

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By John P. Anderson

Pershing Drive is one of the best examples in urban San Diego of what well planned and executed bicycle infrastructure can be.  The road has few stops (basically just one, at Florida Drive), goes through an enjoyable area of Balboa Park with many nice views, and has full-width bicycle lanes on both sides of the road.

Additionally, Pershing connects North Park and other neighborhoods like City Heights and Normal Heights with Downtown – an ideal route for those commuting to work Downtown or headed there for entertainment or other purposes.  It is also a great example of how an ideal situation can be squandered.   [Read more…]

BLOG UGLY – The Memetoads Take on Filner

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Poisoning the Conversation at CBS8

By Bob Dorn

I see this image of the chickenhawk/wingnut/GOP-intern type of internet player in my head; he’s the sort that girls and women avoid by changing aisles in the supermarket if they see him before he sees them.

He (rarely a she, for reasons I’ll speak of later) hunches over the keyboard so the Cheetos shards don’t fall on the rug. He wears a Padres cap to keep his hair out of his eyes. His little belly is soft, but big enough to make his t-shirt catch some of the salt and crumbs from the chips. He’s smart enough to be snarky but in print he appears at times to be dumb. That’s because some of the chip debris now and then drops onto the keyboard and brings about the odd misspelling that sabotages the comment he’s working hard at producing.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan’s Las Monthly Ondas May Edition: Cinco de Mayo is Not Mexican Independence Day

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Cinco de Mayo commemorates El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla) where in 1862 a ragtag Mexican army lead by General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated a much superior and better equipped force of the French army. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day. It’s not even a significant holiday in Mexico except in the state of Puebla where the battle took place.

After the great liberal Mexican president Benito Juarez decided to stop paying Mexico’s foreign debt for two years to help it’s near bankrupt national treasury France’s Napoleon III, pissed off by this move, decided to invade and build up it’s empire.   [Read more…]

What’s in a Name? Five San Diego Neighborhoods in Search of an Identity

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By Avital Aboody 

About one year ago I moved from Los Angeles to San Diego and began working as the Project Coordinator for the Greater Logan Heights Community Partnership (GLHCP), a collaborative of community-based organizations serving Logan Heights, Memorial, Sherman Heights, Grant Hill and Stockton. These five neighborhoods are bounded by Route 94 to the north, 1-15 to the east, and 1-5 the south and west.

The GLHCP is an outgrowth of the Neighborhood First Initiative piloted by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in 2008. The group formed as an earnest effort to unite community-based organizations and empower residents to take action to create sustainable change in their neighborhood. Before taking this job, I had never heard of any of these neighborhoods, let alone the varying names that are used to refer to them collectively. But as I launched into my work, I quickly learned the significance of names in this community.   [Read more…]

Labor Bashing and Lincoln Club Love in San Diego Elections

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The Last Refuge for Losers and Scoundrels in Local Democratic Politics in Assembly District 80 and Council District 4

By Jim Miller

In the race to replace Ben Hueso in the 80th it shouldn’t be shocking that Lorena Gonzalez’s opponent has attacked her for being a “union boss” except for the fact that that charge was hurled at her not from a Republican but from fellow Democrat, Steve Castaneda.  Indeed, Mr. Castaneda, who would surely have taken labor’s endorsement if offered, was far too quick to turn to cartoon like right-wing anti-union stereotypes.  This should tell us all we need to know about this variety of Democrat.

Sadly, he is one of a growing number of Democrats who can blithely turn on labor when it is convenient for their own political ambitions or pocket books.   [Read more…]

Protest in City Heights of Controversial Ethiopian Consulate Meeting

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Local Ethiopian Community Invited to Attend Meeting, Allege They Were Kicked Out for Protesting Ethiopian Government’s Human Rights Abuses

By Anna Daniels

Lines of taxicabs were parked along Fairmount Avenue in City Heights yesterday afternoon–Sunday April 28. Police cars were parked in front of the Golden Hall East African Community and Cultural Center where approximately sixty people were holding a protest that spilled into the adjacent parking lot. Signs with “Stop Human Rights Abuses” were visible among the group waving Ethiopian and American flags.

According to protesters, the Ethiopian Consulate from Los Angeles was barricaded inside the cultural center with an undetermined number of members of the San Diego and Los Angeles Ethiopian Community. The Consulate was attending a widely publicized meeting to promote the purchase of bonds to build a controversial dam in Ethiopia that threatens the livelihood of thousands of indigenous peoples.

Protesters maintained that flyers advertising the meeting had been left in City Heights Ethiopian markets and restaurants. One woman told me that when the protesting group entered the cultural center they were met with invectives, hostility and intimidation before being dispersed from the meeting which had been publicized as open to the public.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Evading Taxes as a ‘Human Right’ (?!)

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By Doug Porter

Say what? Will these people ever stop with the twisting of words?

Does it say that in the Bible? Is it in the UN Charter? Did the founders include it in the Constitution on orders from Jesus?

Cut me a break, already.

Bloomberg news has a story up detailing how tough things are becoming for gazillionaires who want to hide their money in overseas accounts.  It seems as though many of the world’s safe havens are becoming more transparent in the face of international pressure from countries tired of seeing cashed stashed in places where they can’t tax it. So now, somehow, evading taxes is becoming a human right.

INSIDE: International Workers Memorial Day, Brown Gets Down on Prison Court Orders, Basketball Player Comes Out, Guns and Votes   [Read more…]

Reagan’s Budget Director Excoriates Republican Economic Philosophy

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David Stockman calls GOP economic policies “bubble finance” and “crony capitalism”

Part 1 of a multipart series

By Frank Thomas and John Lawrence 

David Stockman, an integral part of the Reagan administration, has produced a great book, “The Great Deformation,” in which he blames Republican Presidents starting with Richard Nixon for the sad state of the US economy, but he saves his worst invective for Ronald Reagan and George W Bush for their abandonment of sound economic policy and their wild “deficits don’t matter” spending.

He indicts the Reagan administration for a needless, wasteful military build-up and the creation of what he calls the “warfare state.” He also condemns the fiscal profligacy of Republican economic policy for condoning any and all tax cuts for any reason whatsoever, for coddling Wall Street and for decades of money printing and market rigging by the Federal Reserve.   [Read more…]

City Councilman David Alvarez: How I See Barrio Logan

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By David Alvarez
District 8 City Council Representative

The community of Barrio Logan, of which I grew up in, is one of the oldest and most culturally-rich urban neighborhoods in San Diego. From historic beginnings to the vibrant mix of uses and people who reside and work in Barrio Logan, the neighborhood has played a vital role in the City’s development. The Barrio Logan community is a living example of the change and evolution that have continuously shaped the area’s cultural heritage, development patterns, economic opportunities, and social fabric.

Barrio Logan has a long history as a working-class waterfront community. Its early days as a base of homes and businesses for primarily Mexican immigrant workers helped shape the community into an important working waterfront neighborhood. As the community built up around maritime uses, such as tuna canning, military industries, and the Navy, the influx of Mexican migrant workers created a dominant presence in Barrio Logan in the 1910s and 1920s.   [Read more…]

How Much Is Your Life Worth?

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Price of some cancer drugs exceeds $100,000. a year

By John Lawrence

How much is your life worth?

In a free market economy like the US, that question is settled by ability of the individual to pay. If you can’t pay over $100,000 a year for a life-saving cancer drug, your life isn’t worth as much as someone who can.

In a free market economy your life is worth exactly your ability to pay. In countries where the government pays the cost of drugs, they decide how much your life is worth. In Britain it’s $50,000; that’s the price the British government has negotiated the most expensive drugs down to. Is there a moral limit to how much Big Pharma can charge for some life saving drugs?

Some doctors seem to think so.   [Read more…]

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