Politics

Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – It’s a Bright Blue Day for San Diego; Labor Wins Big in Special Elections

The Starting Line – It’s a Bright Blue Day for San Diego; Labor Wins Big in Special Elections

by Doug Porter 05.22.2013 Activism

School Board Member Richard Barrera to Head Labor Council

By Doug Porter

The results are in for the last of a series of elections triggered by Bob Filner’s decision to run for Mayor of San Diego. Labor leader Lorena Gonzalez displayed her mastery of the political process, pulling together a massive canvassing campaign that gave her an overwhelming 72% of the vote and a seat in the State Assembly.

For those of you keeping track, Filner moved from the US House of Representatives to Mayor of San Diego, Juan Vargas moved from State Senate to fill Filner’s seat, Ben Hueso moved from State Assembly to State Senate.

In the slime-filled race for San Diego’s 4th District City Council seat, Myrtle Cole triumphed over Dwayne Crenshaw with 53% of the vote. Although both Cole & Crenshaw were both Democrats and similar in outlook, the contest turned into a shadow boxing match, with the organized labor and downtown business interests funding increasingly nasty direct mail campaigns.

The really big news coming out of last night’s contests was the disclosure that San Diego Unified School Board Trustee Richard Barrera will be taking over the helm at the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO. The Labor Council is a coalition of 135 local unions representing more than 200,000 working families in the area that has played an ever increasing role in local politics.

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Thumbnail image for Excavating Golden Hill: The Mansion on the Hill

Excavating Golden Hill: The Mansion on the Hill

by Jim Miller 05.22.2013 Culture

By Jim Miller

Coming up Broadway from downtown, it’s the one thing you can’t miss: the Quartermass/Wilde house, the Xanadu of Golden Hill. In the heart of a district of historic homes, this one serves as a monument to the elite status of Golden Hill in the beginning of the last century. One of the biggest of the remaining Victorian mansions in the city, it is also one of San Diego’s most spectacular historic structures.

With its marvelous rococo towers, Doric columns, and stunning domed cupola, the Quartermass/Wilde House looms atop the hill. This gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian mixes in elements of classical revival style as it sits above the street on stone retaining walls amidst a beautifully landscaped yard featuring a huge Star Pine. When one approaches the house from the intersection of Broadway and 24th, the stairway of the unique corner entrance beckons like Gatsby with the promise of unspeakable wonder.

Once inside, one is greeted by an ornately carved stairwell, walls covered with wood paneling and elaborate tapestries, stained glass windows on the landing, a wine cellar, and 8800 square feet of elegant domestic space. Built in 1897 by department store owner Ruben Quartermass, this mansion spoke the status that was the elite enclave of Golden Hill.

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Thumbnail image for District 4 City Council Race: Character Matters

District 4 City Council Race: Character Matters

by Andy Cohen 05.21.2013 Government

San Diego City Council runoff election boils down to a question of the character of the two candidates.

By Andy Cohen

Today is election day for the San Diego City Council District 4 special election. It has been quite a wild ride, particularly since Myrtle Cole stormed to the top of a very crowded primary field. The favorite from the get-go, Dwayne Crenshaw, the longtime San Diego politico and a familiar face in City Hall circles finished a surprisingly distant second, but due to the sheer number of candidates in the primary field, Cole still managed to finish with less than 50%+1 of the vote, triggering today’s runoff.

Both candidates are highly qualified for the office. Both candidates are likely to side strongly with the Democratic bloc of the City Council, and both candidates are likely to be more supportive of Mayor Bob Filner’s agenda than some of the more “centrist” current Democratic members of the City Council. I know, I know…..the San Diego City Council is officially supposed to be non-partisan, but that’s not the reality, and the fact that today’s special election will restore a one vote majority to the Democrats on the council is significant.

But that’s not the issue here. The real issue is one of character. Character matters. In fact, I would argue that character is the one thing that matters most when voters choose their elected representatives to government. If we can’t trust our elected officials to hold true to their word and to work in the best interests of the communities who hired them in the first place, then we cannot trust our government, period.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Tinker, Tailor, Journalist, Criminal

The Starting Line – Tinker, Tailor, Journalist, Criminal

by Doug Porter 05.21.2013 Columns

Century Old Espionage Law Being Used to Reign in the Press

By Doug Porter

For as long as there’s been a central government in the United States, it’s been attempting to reign in the press.

The 1798 Alien and Sedition Act was an effort by the governing Federalist Party to criminalize criticism of Congress and the President.  President Abraham Lincoln signed numerous executive orders which made it both illegal and punishable by death to hold “correspondence with” or give “intelligence to the enemy, either directly or indirectly”.

Twentieth century presidents resorted to covert surveillance and even blackmail when they couldn’t find a handy law to keep the fourth estate in check.

The latest chapters in this ongoing saga involve search warrants that ultimately covered months of work, home and cellphone records used by almost 100 people at the Associated Press and secret court actions naming Fox News reporter James Rosen as criminal co-conspirator in an espionage case.

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Thumbnail image for Spanking in the Name of the Lord

Spanking in the Name of the Lord

by Source 05.20.2013 Books & Poetry

When Children are Maltreated by Religious Groups

By Dave Rice

Child sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church have repeatedly rocked the nation for more than a decade now, and in 2010 spread locally to reach the San Diego Diocese. The so-called “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and early ‘90s brought the prospect of harm to children through mysterious and violent rituals to the forefront of the nation’s attention (though such focus turned out to be largely overblown), while periodically stories reach the news involving the tragic death of a child raised by a family of religious separatists. Incidents such as the aforementioned remind us that institutions of faith are capable of inspiring misplaced trust that can bring harm to the most vulnerable amongst us: our children.

These stories, however, just scratch the surface of a more widespread problem concerning the mistreatment of children in the name of religion, says Janet Heimlich, author of Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – University of California Hospital Strike Looks Like a Reality

The Starting Line – University of California Hospital Strike Looks Like a Reality

by Doug Porter 05.20.2013 Columns

By Doug Porter

More than 2,000 hospital workers at UC San Diego are planning on staying home from work for a couple of days (May 21 & 22) this week. Vocational nurses, respiratory therapists, pharmacy technicians, bus drivers and custodians will go on strike Tuesday following nearly a year of failed negotiations. Their last contract expired in September.

Depending on who’s talking, the 30,000 workers at five University of California health centers are about to walk off the job (or honor the picket lines of those who do strike) are motivated by demands that the UC Medical System stop prioritizing profit over quality patient care OR a refusal by the union to agree to UC’s pension reforms.

The pending strike is NOT just about higher pay, as is being reported in the mass media. Demands by management that workers increase their contribution to pensions funds have been countered by the union’s complaints about soaring executive compensation in the UC system.

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Thumbnail image for The “Self Appointed Mayor of Golden Hill” Holds Court in the Big Kitchen

The “Self Appointed Mayor of Golden Hill” Holds Court in the Big Kitchen

by Jim Miller 05.20.2013 Activism

By Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew

Judy Forman is a Golden Hill institution. Her restaurant, the Big Kitchen Café, has served as a center of community life and activism for many years. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine the neighborhood without her or her place. I first went to the Big Kitchen myself in the eighties when I met with folks involved in the protest movement against Reagan Administration policies in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

More recently, Judy helped Kelly and me out by playing the role of Emma Goldman in the 100-year Anniversary of the San Diego Free Speech Fight when local labor and Occupy folks took over the intersection of 5th and E downtown. Over the years Forman has been active in LGBT politics, helped out with fundraisers for the Center on Policy Initiative’s Students for Economic Justice Internship program, started the New Play Café (a company devoted to helping playwrights develop their work), and offered up her “kitchen,” as she likes to say, to far too many people to name here.

Thus, to make a long story short, Forman has had her hand in much local activism over the past thirty some odd years and the Big Kitchen has always been one of the progressive hubs of San Diego and the heart of the neighborhood. It was our pleasure to interview her for this Golden Hill series.

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Thumbnail image for Heroes and Villains: Does US Foreign Policy Understand the Difference?

Heroes and Villains: Does US Foreign Policy Understand the Difference?

by Source 05.18.2013 Activism

By Joseph Howard Crews

For 60 years the most celebrated and revered African in history was listed as a terrorist threat to the people of the United States. Who decided this? Why did Americans allow this, and what does it say about what we are?

In 2008, former South African President Nelson Mandela was finally removed from the U.S. terrorism watch list. Mandela and other members of the African National Congress had been placed on the list because of their fight against South Africa’s apartheid regime — a system of legalized racial segregation enforced by the country’s National Party between 1948 and 1994.

Yet it was just days ago that former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt — a man once lauded by President Ronald Reagan — was convicted of genocide after a Guatemalan court found him guilty for his role in the slaughter of 1,771 Mayan Ixils in the 1980s. In fact, a total of 200,000 Guatemalans were killed or “disappeared” during the conflict, making it one of Latin America’s most violent wars in modern history.

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Thumbnail image for 4 Inhumane Realities about the Guantanamo Hunger Strike

4 Inhumane Realities about the Guantanamo Hunger Strike

by Source 05.18.2013 Government

By Steven Hsieh / Alternet

Friday [marked] 100 days since the beginning of the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay that has recaptured international attention on the offshore prison President Obama promised to close when seeking office five years ago.

As of Thursday, military officials say that 102 out of 166 detainees are participating in the strike. Lawyers say that number is closer to 130.

Since the hunger strike began 100 days ago, international groups including the European Parliament, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and several nations with detainees at GITMO have stepped up pressure on the Obama administration to release detainees or close the prison altogether.

As the strike continues past its 100th day, here are four of the most disturbing facts about the situation at Guantanamo.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Republicans Ask: Can We Find Obama Guilty First and Have the Trial Later?

The Starting Line – Republicans Ask: Can We Find Obama Guilty First and Have the Trial Later?

by Doug Porter 05.17.2013 Columns

The Scandal Trifecta That Isn’t 

By Doug Porter

After five years of waiting and hoping, Republicans of the Tea Party persuasion have finally reached a hysterical critical mass. Here, they’re saying, is the proof of what we’ve been trying to tell the public all along—that the President of the United States is unfit for office.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann hijacked a press conference with Senator Mitch McConnell that was supposed to be a pity party for some tea partiers who were allegedly targeted by the IRS, by announcing that her constituents were demanding impeachment.

As Brian Beutler at TPM noted, “You could hear the crunch of McConnell’s intestines turning to ice from across the capital.”

The mother of all these ‘scandals’, Benghazi ran into trouble yesterday as Republicans were fingered in the national news media for mischaracterizing leaking two isolated tidbits from classified emails.  The unnamed ‘Congressional GOP sources’ belief they could get away with such a deception was undone by the Obama administration’s decision to release more than 100 pages of previous classified emails.

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Thumbnail image for Should the Big Wall Street Banks Have Been Allowed to Fail? – Part 4

Should the Big Wall Street Banks Have Been Allowed to Fail? – Part 4

by John Lawrence 05.17.2013 Business

by Frank Thomas and John Lawrence

Frank has eloquently argued “Yes” here in Part 2 and continued here in Part 3 of our examination of the financial crisis of 2008. Part 1 dealt with Republican economic philosophy over the last 30 years which had produced disastrous results for the economy leading up to the crisis.

This week John argues that AIG should have been allowed to fail and that this would not have affected Main Street banks or the banking activities of average Americans. But the real question is ‘If American taxpayers and the Fed had not given billions of dollars to AIG and the other large banking institutions, would they have indeed failed or would they, on the other hand, have survived quite nicely even without the bailouts?’

What’s clear in the financial crisis of 2008 is that Washington rescued Wall Street while abandoning Main Street.

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Thumbnail image for It’s a Sad Day in America When the Navy Launches a San Diego-Built Drone off a Carrier

It’s a Sad Day in America When the Navy Launches a San Diego-Built Drone off a Carrier

by Frank Gormlie 05.16.2013 Culture

It’s a sad day in America. The US Navy launched the first carrier-based drone off its deck the other day, off the coast of Virginia. It’s an even sadder day for us in San Diego, as the drone was manufactured – in part, at least – by plants and engineers right here in our own city.

The launching of the drone off that deck demonstrates clearly that as drones become more and more integrated into becoming the armament of the nation’s military, they are becoming more and more accepted – here domestically, back in the good ol’ US of A.

And as drones become more and more prevalently utilized, not just by our armed forces overseas, but by law enforcement, border patrol, and local police departments here within our very own borders, American citizens are more and more subjected to a high-tech surveillance that is quite unlike anything we’ve known in the past – a surveillance that is becoming so pervasive, that it challenges our basic civil rights, freedoms and privacies.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Grand Jury Report Casts a Light on the Sorry State of San Diego’s Bikeways

The Starting Line – Grand Jury Report Casts a Light on the Sorry State of San Diego’s Bikeways

by Doug Porter 05.16.2013 Activism

Be Safe on Bike to Work Day, Friday, May 17th

By Doug Porter

The San Diego County Grand Jury report on the state of our city’s bikeways does its best to be positive.  After all, decades of car-centric public planning and policies are slowly giving way to an increasing awareness of the benefits and possibilities of traveling on two wheels in a city with near-perfect weather conditions.

‘Everybody’ agrees, or at least pays lips service to, the need for safe and increased access for bicyclists on the roads around San Diego. The Grand Jury even called its report: San Diego – A Bicycle Friendly City.

The reality of riding isn’t so nice for today’s bicyclists, however. Years of deferred maintenance of roadways in San Diego have made many of the gestures towards riders empty ones. Despite the prevailing narrative that this infrastructural neglect is somehow due to incompetent or inefficient government burdened with an overpaid class of civil servants, the truth of matter is that public attitudes towards government in general are at the heart of the matter.

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Thumbnail image for School Board Okays Controversial Sale of Prime Mission Beach School Property – Despite Mayor Filner’s Plea

School Board Okays Controversial Sale of Prime Mission Beach School Property – Despite Mayor Filner’s Plea

by Frank Gormlie 05.16.2013 Economy

By Frank Gormlie/ OB Rag

On Tuesday, May 14th, the San Diego Unified School District board authorized the sale of the former Mission Beach Elementary School property to private developers – despite objections by Mayor Filner, residents and community activists.

The 4 to 1 vote by the Board was the culmination of the process to cement the controversial sale of 2.23 acres of prime public school land, a half block from the Pacific Ocean and mere yards from Mission Bay. Mayor Filner, community planners and civic activists, as well as residents pleaded with the Board to keep the land in the public arena, and work with either the City or developers on alternatives.

The site was sold for $18.5 million to a duo of developers, doing business as McKellar-Ashbrook LLC, registered in La Jolla.

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Thumbnail image for Benghazi: the More You Stir a Turd, the More It Stinks

Benghazi: the More You Stir a Turd, the More It Stinks

by John Lawrence 05.16.2013 Government

by John Lawrence

Determined to make a scandal out of the Benghazi incident, Vista, CA Congressman Darryl Issa has launched an investigation. What else do Republicans have to do?

They certainly aren’t going to pass any legislation that might be on Obama’s agenda. So they’ve got nothing else to do but to launch an investigation.

Here are the facts:

Four people were killed, including US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens on September 11, 2012. Ten others were injured.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – A Real Scandal! Activists Around the World to Protest Monsanto May 25th

The Starting Line – A Real Scandal! Activists Around the World to Protest Monsanto May 25th

by Doug Porter 05.15.2013 Activism

Balboa Park March & Rally, Mission Bay Overpass Light Brigade Events Expected to Draw Thousands

By Doug Porter 

While the oldstream media is obsessing on the current crop of Washington’s politi-dramas, an international protest movement is gathering steam. Activists in on six continents, in 36 countries, and in 47 U.S. states — totaling events in over 250 cities — are coordinating demonstrations to occur simultaneously at 11am Pacific time on Saturday May 25th under the general theme “March Against Monsanto”.

The St Louis-based biotech behemoth Monsanto has come under increasing attack from environmentalists, agriculturalists and average consumers in response to the company’s conduct in the realm of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically-engineered foods.

Efforts aimed at forcing the company to engage in transparent business practices, like providing consumer information about products incorporating GMOs, have exposed a corporate culture willing to use raw power and virtually unlimited amounts of cash to protect their interests.

San Diego protest info here and here.  More details later on in story

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Thumbnail image for Desperate “Times” at Anti-Koch Brothers Rally

Desperate “Times” at Anti-Koch Brothers Rally

by Source 05.15.2013 Business

By Danny Feingold/Frying Pan News

The L.A. Times has not exactly been falling all over itself lately to curry favor with the city’s labor movement, with a seemingly endless stream of news stories, columns and editorials portraying unions in a less than sympathetic light. So the last thing one might have expected to see was a rally of workers and labor leaders coming to the defense of L.A.’s paper of record.

But desperate times call for desperate measures – and with the Koch brothers potentially poised to take over Spring Street, the present moment certainly meets the test.

In case you have tuned out the Times and every other source of local news, Charles and David Koch – patron saints of the Tea Party, best friends to climate change deniers and bankrollers of an endless parade of far-right causes – have set their sights on the Tribune Company’s empire. After emerging from a bankruptcy brought on by the rapacious practices of former owner Sam Zell, Tribune’s far-flung newspaper interests are up for grabs. And while Rupert Murdoch and a local consortium headed by Eli Broad are also in the running, public attention has focused on the Kochs.

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Thumbnail image for Red Scare: The GOP and the Politics of Fear

Red Scare: The GOP and the Politics of Fear

by Andy Cohen 05.14.2013 Government

From prison realignment to Benghazi, fringe conspiracy theories and fearmongering remain the tools of choice in California Republicans’ quest to regain power.

By Andy Cohen

“We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them,” said the fictional President Shepherd of his would be Republican opponent Bob Rumson. “And whatever your particular problem is I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: Making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it.”

It was true back then in 1995 when Aaron Sorkin brought “The American President” to the screen, and God bless them, the GOP is still playing to type today. And we’re not just talking about national Republicans like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and the NRA who are petrified that at any moment Nancy Pelosi is going to come charging through their doors and confiscate their Buck knives.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – UT-San Diego Publisher ‘Papa’ Doug Manchester’s Overly Generous Campaign Contributions

The Starting Line – UT-San Diego Publisher ‘Papa’ Doug Manchester’s Overly Generous Campaign Contributions

by Doug Porter 05.14.2013 Columns

By Doug Porter

Some people are more equal than others. And when it comes to fat cats like developer and newspaper publisher Doug Manchester, that ‘more equal’ status would seem to mean above the law.

Today’s revelation about Manchester’s misdeeds comes from the Sunlight Foundation, which has scoured campaign finance records nationwide and identified hard money donors who have donated to federal candidates, political parties and political committees in the last election cycle,

“Papa” Doug Manchester made the list of hard money donors of those who appear to have exceeded the legal limit of $70,800 to parties and committees in the 2012 cycle. His donations of $83,426 to committees and $10,000 to candidates all went to Republicans, of course.

I doubt he’s lost any sleep over breaking this ‘little people’s’ law. That’s why he’s got lawyers.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – The Meanies at the IRS and Other Republicanesque Themes du Jour

The Starting Line – The Meanies at the IRS and Other Republicanesque Themes du Jour

by Doug Porter 05.13.2013 Columns

By Doug Porter 

It’s the new Benghazi.

It’s ‘Plan B’, in case Congressman Darrell Issa’s crew can’t make the case for impeachment. They’re even willing to tie Presidents Obama and Nixon together.

I’m talking about the emerging ‘scandal’ that the Internal Revenue Service made life difficult for Tea Party type groups seeking to obtain tax exempt status. The story gets top billing in today’s UT-San Diego, slightly overshadowing coverage of Senator John McCain’s call for a special panel to investigate last year’s attack on the US diplomatic compound/CIA station in Libya.

Documents obtained by various media outlets over the past few days, including the Washington Post, the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, tell a story about the behind the scene processes at the IRS in how it defined “social welfare groups” following the US Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen’s United ruling.

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