By Doug Porter
Things must be going poorly for incumbent District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis in her re-election campaign. While she hasn’t been accused of involvement in the unfolding campaign finance scandal stemming from a foreign donor’s quest to turn our downtown waterfront into another Miami, a whiff of ‘something’s not right here’ remains in the air.
Her re-election effort is facing a stiff challenge from a well-funded opponent who’s managed to nail down endorsements from a large majority of law enforcement-related groups and nearly two dozen former assistant DAs. And her latest gaffe won’t help matters much.
Yesterday, challenger Bob Brewer announced the endorsement of Father Joe Carroll, whose high profile blessing of Kevin Faulconer was well received by voters during the recent mayoral contest. It should have been a blip on the radar of the campaign. Now it’s not.
The Dumanis campaign issued a press release in response criticizing the announcement for characterizing Brewer as a ‘prosecutor,’ since he’s now in private practice. His prosecutorial experience includes seven years as a Deputy District Attorney and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles.
But that was several decades ago. And the Dumanis campaign pounced. Brewer’s no prosecutor they whined. Father Joe’s got it wrong.
Then Father Joe responded directly:
“Today’s press release by the Dumanis campaign was very petty. The release suggests I made misleading statements in a video in which I endorse Bob Brewer for District Attorney. I stand by what I said in the video and press release and will continue to do so. Her campaign contacted me about a possible endorsement but I had already given my support to Bob, a man of great integrity who I believe will take politics out of the DA’s office. Responding to my endorsement of Bob in the way that her campaign did was inappropriate.”
Ooops. Now Dumanis has offended a well-regarded retired priest known for his unselfish devotion to the homeless. What’s she going to do next? Spit on the flag?
Perhaps the Dumanis campaign was hoping to draw attention way from the looming $7 million dollar judgement against the City of San Diego resulting from her failed prosecution of members of the pension board.
Via UT-San Diego:
On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court decided not to review a decision by a lower court that ordered the city to pay $5.4 million in legal fees for the former board members.
They had been charged in 2005 by District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis with violating the state’s conflict-of-interest law by voting for a city plan to save money by putting less money into the pension system — while boosting their own benefits and those of thousands of other employees.
With interest, plus the costs of a second lawsuit filed by the lawyers to recover their costs for filing the initial suit to recoup fees, the total city bill will likely exceed $7 million.
The City Attorney was the actual loser in this most recent case, since the lawsuit was about legal fees. But the fees wouldn’t have been a question if Dumanis’ prosecutions had passed muster at the State Supreme Court, which found most defendants in the case hadn’t received special benefits over and above those granted to all city employees.
Eight Million Flaws in the GOP’s Game Plan
Oh-oh. The Republicans’ hopes for the end of the world caused by the Kenyan-Muslim-Socialist in the White House are in trouble.
On page A2 of today’s UT-San Diego there’s an Associated Press story signalling a sea-change in the American landscape. Eight million people nationally have signed up for health care through Obamacare’s insurance exchanges.
A Washington Post article says another 3 million Americans have signed up for Medicaid. Five million have signed up for non-exchange health plans. Three million young people have insurance under their parents plans.
On the front page of the business section, the sub-head for the local version of the story tells us that the final number for Covered California is twice what was predicted for the state’s health care exchange.
This is the worst kind of news for a Republican Party that’s been banking on the hope the Affordable Care Act would fall on it’s face. Today’s New York Times includes an article saying roughly $33 million has already be been spent nationally by conservative Political Action Committees in 2014. Much of that war chest, including the ads running about Rep. Scott Peters funded by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity has focused on negative portrayals of Obamacare.
Our own UT-San Diego has been at the forefront of the war against Obamacare. As is common with reactionary propagandists these days, they’ve waged a campaign based on the premise that the program would actually hurt the people it was intended to help.
Remember this one? (January 24, 2013)
To call Obamacare flawed is an understatement on the order of calling the Amazon River a tiny stream. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 is so fraught with internal contradictions that it sometimes seems designed to collapse the existing U.S. health-care system.
And this one? (August 16, 2013)
Here’s the wonder: that the president can survey this wreckage and argue with a straight face that he’s the one advancing “an agenda that is going to strengthen our middle class.” That’s not what it looks like to the middle class — to small-business owners, union members, restaurant managers, school administrators and many more.
Obamacare shouldn’t just be defunded. The stinking mess should be repealed.
And this one? (August 20, 2012)
With 11 weeks until Election Day, President Barack Obama’s desperation couldn’t be plainer. He wants the campaign to be about anything other than his record, starting with the failure of the $787 billion “stimulus” plan to revive the economy and the deeply unpopular, vastly expensive and utterly flawed botch that is Obamacare.
More Pot Shots Coming
Having taken my first victory lap (there will be more) over the UT editorial board’s mundane malevolence toward any health insurance solution short of firing squads for the uninsured, I recognize that the fat lady hasn’t actually sung yet.
In the short term it’s likely that GOP/Koch mythology will keep those segments of the voting public more likely to show up in mid-term elections believing that there is actually a possibility of repealing Obamacare. Combined with the egregious gerrymandering that’s taken place in House districts all over the country, I doubt that any proclamation coming out of Washington will do much more than blunt a mid-term GOP electoral advantage.
As Jamie Fuller points out in the Washington Post:
For the Republican Party, new press releases from the Obama administration aren’t a reason to despair. It provides a perfect opportunity to give their talking points maximum exposure. For the most part, Republicans don’t need to persuade people that their belief in the complete failure of Obamacare is right. All they need to do is make their base — which already has been conditioned to have a negative Pavlovian response to Obamacare — angry enough to vote against the incumbents who supported the legislation.
But, as many observers have noted, the Real Fear on the right isn’t that Obamacare will fail. It’s that Obamacare will succeed. So we can all expect the GOP to make mountains out of molehills as this health insurance program rolls on. Stuff like “My third cousin’s acne turned out to be gonorrhea because of Obamacare” will continue to get plenty of play.
Let them continue to cry “wolf,” I say. It will come back to bite them in the ass. As more Americans get with the program and the world doesn’t end, the GOP’s doomsday logic will be exposed for the fraud it is.
The tide is already turning, From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:
…Republicans spent years saying No to Obamacare — a strategy based on seeming certainty that all Republicans had to do was wait until the law collapsed, as it inevitably would – and now they have been caught flat-footed with nothing to offer of their own.
Kaiser’s tracking polls on health care — the gold standard — neatly demonstrate that Americans don’t believe there is any Republican alternative. Its March poll found that only 29 percent of Americans want to repeal Obamacare, but in that category, only 11 percent of Americans want to repeal the law and replace it with an unspecified GOP alternative. In February some 12 percent were in that latter category. In October it stood at 13 percent. And so on.
The GOP “repeal and replace” strategy relies on keeping replace vague. It relies on a gamble that voters won’t notice that the actual choice Republicans are offering them is to stick with Obamacare or to return to the old system…
On This Day: 1906 – San Francisco was hit with an massive earthquake. The original death toll was cited at about 700. Later information indicated that the death toll may have been 3 to 4 times the original estimate. 1955 – Albert Einstein died. 2003 – Etta James received a star (#2,223) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to… Catch “the Starting Line” Monday thru Friday right here at San Diego Free Press (dot) org. Send your hate mail and ideas to DougPorter@
Wow, passionate plea… Love it
My own modest contribution to the healthcare program, to which I do pledge allegiance, was a last minute enrollment, via my ipad, the evening of April 15, when I heard on the evening news that the deadline, oops, I mean lifeline was extended to that midnight, just like the tax returns, so I went online, created a profile, read some stuff, chose a plan, the cheapest, and enrolled, and paid, and it took me, with a few family interruptions, a half an hour… Now I am enrolled…
The system worked great, really great…
As you see, I was resistant, kind of waiting for the kinks to work out, but, hey…
Your body is a system, your society is a system…
I know some good folks who are getting health insurance for their old age, or young independence, for $1/mo or $100/month, something reasonable and my modest contribution of $388/ month is going toward balancing them… Thank you for the opportunity…
Dumanis and her campaign manager Jennifer Tiernny are so busy answering questions from the FBI about how Singh was a volunteer and paid political consultant at the same time they blew this one. Brewer has accomplished more in his 7 + years as a prosecutor than she has in her whole career as a Deputy DA and Judge. He did all this without political goals. With all the defendants rolling over and cooperating with the FBI I understand how their mind was elsewhere and they missed this one.
Video: Unearthed News Reel Footage Shows Aftermath Of 1906 Earthquake.
Go Father Joe! Seems like Dumanis’ campaign could benefit from the Sacrament of Extreme Unction a.k.a. Last Rites of the Dying Sick.
FYI Doug, we’re still tracking Dumanis’ involvment in the debacle for the race for jurist seat 20. http://wp.me/plYPz-3KS
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive! More to come regarding Dumanis’ role in the matter.
Doug, I love your stuff and do my best to spread it around. But please, watch the use of apostrophes, especially in “it’s” and ” its”. Rule of thumb: when in doubt, leave it out.
“Now Dumanis has offended a well-regarded retired priest known for his unselfish devotion to the homeless. What’s she going to do next? Spit on the flag?” LOL! Not to worry about Old Glory, Dumanis is too busy spitting on the deputy DAs who can’t help her political ambitions.
Not a good idea to p–s off Father Joe. Bonnie Dumanis is so intent on defending her dismal record as DA, not to mention the “reign of terror” she has single-handedly generated within her own office through nepotism, punishment transfers, and favoritism in awarding promotions to those too scared to stand up to her, that she seems to be shooting herself in the foot at each turn. By June 3, there will only be the shell of the DA she thinks she is in her own mind. Watch for a landslide for Bob Brewer. So says a former DDA who has himself been the target of her irrational wrath.
In 1970 Ed Miller won the election when he won the debate before the Bar Association.
If Bonnie is smart she won’t show up as the Mexican case blows up in her face. If she does show Father Joe should get a front row seat.
Doug, Welton (Walt?) is right about the punctuations and I’m no grammarian. And huzzah for Fa. Joe, his response was right on. Dumanis has left too many in her wake and it looks as though she’ll go under it herself! For the record, there’s no such thing as no politics in the DA’s office.
I encourage people to vote. Is she really the jealous of the endorsement that she has now attacked the integrity of a man of the cloth? What’s next, is right, Marty: Is she going to bash some nuns on Easter Sunday? Wow! I keep writing and collecting the stories so voters can make informed decisions. Here’s my blog: http://istandwithbobbrewer.blogspot.com/. And, here’s my original video that recounts my run-in, with her. Basically, even though I’m a 7 year veteran DDA in LA County, she refuses to even grant me an interview and instead uses nepotism and cronyism to fill the ranks — so, I have chosen to speak out about it. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz2jJCar7LQ. Please vote.
Don’t you all find it odd that the local District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis, endorsed incumbent sitting judge, Lisa Schall, for re-election in February — then un-endorsed her in March?
I know why that is. It has to do with the Feb 28th article by Mr. Porter, “Thou Shalt Not Challenge a Sitting Judge”. The article sheds public light on who is backing compromised local jurists, including their protector Dumanis: http://sandiegofreepress.org/2014/02/thou-shalt-not-challenge-a-sitting-judge-and-other-legal-oddities/
Since 2010, Dumanis has repeatedly refused to prosecute local jurists and their clerks for concealment and continued usage of material court documents that were falsified in Schall’s court in 2008 — while knowingly aiding billions of dollars of workers’ comp insurer fraud written as policy, to continue nationwide.
Bonnie Dumanis is the ultimate corrupt politicians’ politician. The sick joke in this billboard is not the mustache: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/dec/07/stringers-billboard-image-bonnie-dumanis-/