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Faulconer’s Game Plan for San Diego: To Hell With Those Citizen Gadflies – Build, Baby, Build!

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By Doug Porter

His plan is just perfect for sound-bite coverage. Mayoral candidate Kevin Faulconer rolled out his miracle cure for San Diego’s housing crisis focus on the homeless population on Wednesday and the local media dutifully reported his talking points without challenging any assumptions.  It should have been easy to ask a few questions; after all here were no specifics, facts or dollar figures cited.

Today we’ll take a look at some of those assumptions, with a big assist via remarks made by by former mayor Jerry Sanders at a panel discussion sponsored by Torrey Pines Bank. Candidate Faulconer’s plan is simply a gussied up version of “trickle down” economics. And by now hopefully you’ve figured out how that hasn’t worked for 99% of the population. What’s going on here is that the GOP candidate is hiding his true intentions behind a “feel good” press release about the homeless.

A 2012 report by the Center for Housing Policy does a good job of outlining the problem, which extends way past the homeless population. While nearly one in four working households nationally are defined as having severe housing cost burden, 37% of San Diego residents are paying more than half of their income for housing. Much of the working population is one mishap away from being homeless, so when you’re talking about housing in San Diego, you may as well talk about the whole problem.   [Read more…]

How Dry We Are – Worst Drought Conditions in California Since 1895

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By Doug Porter

Thursday’s weather forecast for San Diego includes the slight possibility of rain. Maybe that should be a slight possibility of a slight amount of rain, since the total precipitation is expected to be in the one hundredth of an inch range. The Sierra Nevada Mountains are expected to see as much as six inches of rain, but even that amount will be the proverbial drop in the bucket when compared to the severity of the current drought.

Today’s column will start off with a look around media outlets and water conservation activists in the Golden State addressing the impact of the current dry spell.  A Public Policy Institute poll cited in the UT-San Diego indicates that ten percent of Californians see the drought as the most important issue of the day.

Based on the reactions of State and Federal officials it seems likely to me the public is uninformed about the severity of the situation. Droughts, after all, lack the sex appeal of stories about 19 year old pop stars being arrested or the latest in ObamaScare lies being peddled by the GOP.   [Read more…]

Alvarez Draws Democratic Stars; Faulconer Attracts Reactionaries (Who Tear Down a Few Campaign Signs)

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By Doug Porter

The contrast couldn’t be starker.

A procession of nationally recognized elected Democrats has rolled through San Diego to endorse the candidacy of David Alvarez for Mayor of San Diego.

More than three dozen elected officials from around the state have endorsed his candidacy.  The candidate’s got some star power behind him, connections that could prove valuable in the future.

Exactly zero Republicans outside the Chamber of Commerce/downtown developer set  have stepped up to the plate for his opponent Kevin Faulconer. Only four elected officials from anywhere are listed on his endorsements page. After promising the endorsement of “dozens” of Democrats from around the city for a press conference yesterday, only four were willing to be named on the press release.   [Read more…]

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis Becomes Focal Point for Campaign Contribution Scandal

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By Doug Porter

San Diego County’s District Attorney is getting a lot of heat as reporters continue to unearth new details about a campaign finance scandal spanning the last couple of years.

Prosecutors have determined that more than $200,000 was illegally funneled into independent campaign committees in support of her failed mayoral candidacy in 2012.  UT-San Diego ran a front page story claiming candidate committees directly under Dumanis’ control received $13,250 connected to three persons connected with the ongoing investigation.

Calls for an additional investigation are mounting.  The District Attorney has returned $1,400 in contributions to her current re-election campaign since the scandal unfolded and is refusing to re-open earlier campaign committees to give back monies from earlier contests.   [Read more…]

LGBT Leaders to Call for San Diego County Clerk’s Resignation

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By Doug Porter

Leaders of the local LGBT community will call for the resignation of County Clerk Earnest Dronenburg on Tuesday, presenting documentation they say proves he overstepped his legal authority, violated his oath of office and imposed his religious views on marriage into his non-partisan office.

Following the US Supreme Court decision that effectively overturned California Proposition 8 (banning same sex marriages) last summer, Dronenburg petitioned the state supreme court to issue a a writ of mandate requesting that the state hold off on issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Dronenburg said he wanted remove “uncertainty,” telling a reporter from UT-San Diego “I still have a reservation about what happens if in the final decision, the court decides that gay marriages aren’t legal,” he said. “Then we’ve set up all these people to having to tell them that their marriages aren’t legal. I just wanted a time-out.”

Except that wasn’t what was really happening.   [Read more…]

Conservative Darling Dinesh D’Souza Indicted for Illegal Contributions in Senate Race

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By Doug Porter

Just two years ago San Diego resident Dinesh D’Souza was sitting at the top of the conservative heap. He was a best selling author, president of Kings College, fledgling documentarian and sought after debater. Now he stands accused by federal prosecutors of making $20,000 in straw contributions in a 2012 Senate race.

According to an indictment made public on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, D’Souza around reimbursed people (believed to be his ex-wife and mistress) who he had directed to contribute $20,000 to a senate campaign, believed to be that of Wendy Long, a Republican attorney who lost to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in 2012. The indictment said the campaign was unaware of D’Souza’s activities, which apparently weren’t very helpful, as Long garnered just 28% of the vote..

D’Souza rose from Reaganite beginnings to become a fixture on the ‘90s speaking circuit, and became a personal favorite of UT-San Diego publisher Doug Manchester. The Daily Fishwrap ran scores of full-color ads promoting his shoddily-made documentary entitled 2016: Obama’s America.  

“Papa” Doug even helped finance the film, which set out to lead its audiences to the conclusion that the President of the United States hates this country, wants to destroy it and create a socialist state where everybody is taxed at 100%; one world under Allah.   [Read more…]

Details Emerge in San Diego’s Campaign Finance Scandal

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By Doug Porter

There were new developments in San Diego’s latest round of political malfeasance, bringing drama but not answers to questions about how deep this scandal goes.

Lobbyist Marco Polo Cortes was arrested at his Little Italy residence on Tuesday, following an hour long standoff ending with a FBI Swat team and negotiator being called to the scene. The Coronado Cays residence of Mexican moneyman Susamo Azano, aka Jose Susamo Azano Matsura, was searched by FBI agents on Wednesday. Authorities believe Azano illegally donated a half-million dollars to local political campaigns over the past two years.

Local politicians lined up to return contributions, including Congressman Juan Vargas, iMayor Todd Gloria, former City Councilman Carl DeMaio and others. The returned monies appear to have been legally donated and reported. Every politician involved was just trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the names already associated with the scandal.   [Read more…]

The Story Behind Those Illegal Campaign Contributions in San Diego

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By Doug Porter

The big story today concerns the dark side of campaign finance.  Acomplaint unsealed in federal court yesterday indicates that law enforcement agencies are building a case around illegal contributions made by Mexican businessman Susumo Azano to candidates in recent San Diego elections.

Ravi Singh, owner of ElectionMall Inc., and retired SDPD detective Ernesto Encinas have alreday been charged with conspiring to funnel more than $500,000 of illegal contributions to various campaign committees during 2012 and 2013.  The candidates’ names are redacted in the federal complaint, which refers to them as c1, c2,c3,and c4.

Campaign finance records and inside sources talking to reporters at UT-San Diego indicate the monies went to PACs working to support District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’ mayoral run, former Mayor Bob Filner and former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher. One candidate, who ran for federal office in 2012, remains unidentified.   [Read more…]

More Ad Wars: Sanders’ Billion Dollar Baloney, Lincoln Club’s Crummy Photoshop

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By Doug Porter

It’s hard to miss the Faulconer campaign’s warm and fuzzy broadcast ads featuring former Mayor Jerry Sanders. We’re told several times about how the Republican Mayoral candidate “saved” San Diegans a billion dollars through pension reform. We’re told this money can be used for needed projects in our neighborhoods.

Those assertions are fine examples of the ‘lots of baloney, served often’ strategy being used on Faulconer’s behalf.  Our ex-mayor is an excellent salesman, ready to sell you discount passes for the (toll-free) Coronado Bridge is you’re gullible enough.

Voice of San Diego revisited that oft-quoted one billion dollar figure yesterday in light of newly released information, deciding it merited no better than a ‘misleading’ rating.

Pension savings of $1 billion will come over decades and any contention that they can be put back into neighborhoods immediately, as Faulconer implied in November, is misleading.

  [Read more…]

Superbowl 420, A Big Hit with Bud Fans Everywhere

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By Doug Porter

A gaggle of overgrown men in body armor chasing an inflated pigskin up and down a grass field in New Jersey named after an insurance company in the dead of winter just took on a whole new level of symbolism.

The Seattle Seahawks came from behind in the fourth quarter against the San Francisco 49ers in Sunday’s NFC championship game, joining the Denver Broncos, who defeated the New England Patriots in the earlier AFC championship game, in heading to the Super Bowl.

Both teams are from states,Washington and Colorado, that legalized marijuana at the ballot box in 2012. Given that it’s a holiday and otherwise slow news day, today’s column will begin by talking about the latest developments in weedworld, er…stonerland…, er, marijuana legalization.   [Read more…]

The KUSI Mayoral Debate: Looking for Clues Between the Platitudes

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Left unasked was: ‘boxers or briefs?’ 

By Doug Porter

Just about the first thing the finalists in the mayoral contest did following their victory parties was to issue a joint statement announcing there’d be six (and only six) debates prior to the runoff election. Twenty some-odd bouts in six weeks during the first round campaigning (two of which were scheduled simultaneously in different parts of the city) were just too many. The term ‘debate fatigue’ crept into the local lexicon, and for good reason.

I attended the taping for the second of the six final face-offs on Friday hoping for some new insight into the mayoral race. The dictates of writing five columns a week make data collection always a pressing matter for this writer. After all, there’s only so many times you can point out that Kevin Faulconer is running from the Republican label, even as his campaign is orchestrated by the overlords of America’s Finest Plantation City.

I’d seen the ads, been disgusted by the mailers, pondered the contributors lists and gagged as I read the UT-San Diego editorials.. Now it was time to size up the candidates in a mano-a-mano situation. I’ll spare you the details, lest I seem unappreciative of KUSI’s broadcast involvement.

It is/was KUSI’s party: air time is 8pm on Monday (1/20).   [Read more…]

Gloria Does the Right Thing, Backs Alvarez for Mayor

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Despite laying out a vision for San Diego at his state of the city speech earlier this week looking very much like the one mayoral candidate and City Councilman David Alavarez might craft, the lack of a formal endorsement in the race by iMayor Todd Gloria was troubling for many Democratic Party activists.

Fear not. It was all a matter of timing. Gloria held off on the official blessing until this morning, issuing a full-throated endorsement of city councilman Alvarez, saying:

“This week, I put forward a progressive vision for San Diego to be a great city. It includes ending homelessness, increasing the minimum wage, aggressively funding infrastructure, and implementing a strong Climate Action Plan. David Alvarez is the candidate in this race who shares my vision and who we can count on to make San Diego great.”

The iMayor’s announcement pointed out he and Alvarez worked together to increase funding for affordable housing, update the Barrio Logan community plan, and increasing vital city services via the 2014 budget.

The Alvarez campaign noted that his opponent City Councilman Kevin Faulconer opposed all three of these measures, lest he disappoint his corporate downtown campaign backers.

Gloria will be on the road until next week, but was eager to release his endorsement, according to a press release from the Alvarez campaign. The two will begin making joint appearances soon.   [Read more…]

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