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Don’t Let Your Activism Stop After the Women’s March Progressive Activist Calendar – January 19-29, 2018

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Now that we’ve reached the one year mark in the Trump administration, there are many successes to look back on. It should also be clear this process of protest and activism is a marathon, not a sprint. Ain’t no superhero gonna fix this mess.

We can all look to the victory of those participating in the weekly protests outside Rep. Darrell Issa’s office for inspiration. They resisted. They persisted. And the richest man in Congress decided he could take it no more.

There are more than a dozen contingents participating in the San Diego and North County Women’s Marches; people whose common activism leads them to want to show their solidarity with his and other events.   [Read more…]

President Flip Flops as Government Shutdown Nears

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There is chaos today in Washington created by Donald Trump, whose early morning impulses have upended attempts to get the thing he reportedly values the most–a win.

The GOP hoped they had the makings for a short-term budget deal, kicking the can down the road for a few more weeks while trying to figure out a way to sort out the thorny political issues surrounding defense spending, children’s healthcare (CHIP), and some compromise on Dreamers.

Republican Congressional leaders thought they’d put Democrats between a rock and a hard place by including CHIP and excluding a DACA fix. They were wrong, as legislators from the left side of the aisle said “nope” and lawmakers from the right side of the aisle said, “enough already.”   [Read more…]

All Politics is Local, Even on National Fake News Day

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Arizona Republican Jeff Flake took to the floor of the Senate to make a much-anticipated speech on the President’s attacks on the media.

Given that this speech occurred on the same day as Trump’s promised Fake News Awards, his words, as reported by Raw Story, are worth sharing.

“I rise today to talk about truth’s relationship to democracy,” Flake said.
The senator said that objective truth had been “battered” over the past year, with help from “the most powerful person in our government.”
“Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies,” he said. “It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase ‘enemy of the people,’ that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of ‘annihilating such individuals’ who disagreed with the supreme leader.” Flake added that “free press is the despot’s enemy.”
“No president will even have dominion over objective reality,” he continued, saying that Trump was “charting a very dangerous path” with his inability to withstand criticism. 2018 must be a year in which truth takes a stand.”

I don’t want to make too much of it–his disagreements with the administration, as evidenced by his voting record, are more about style than substance.   [Read more…]

Issa Goes, Opposition Grows: Indivisible Ups the Ante in 49th and 50th Congressional Districts

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Indivisible groups and their coalition partners have announced plans to turn up the heat in San Diego’s Republican-held congressional districts in the wake of Rep. Darrell Issa’s decision not to run for re-election in the 49th District.

This week, rallies and marches in both the 49th and 50th districts will focus on the 2018 elections. Voters are gathering outside the office of Rep. Darrell Issa today to plan the next phase of work to Flip the 49th.

According to a press release, “the message to Rep. Hunter is that the united resistance is coming for your seat after you voted to raise our taxes. The message to Rep. Issa is that if you decide to run for Congress in CA50, the resistance will follow and defeat you there.”   [Read more…]

El Cajon Marks MLK Weekend by Busting People for Feeding Homeless Humans

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Nine people were busted at Wells Park in the city of El Cajon on Sunday for distributing food to homeless people. Those handing out food were arrested, given a misdemeanor citation with a date to appear in court and released. Nobody went to jail.

Activists calling themselves Break the Ban began Sunday food distribution after the City Council unanimously passed an emergency ordinance in October prohibiting the distribution of food on any city-owned property.

Homeless advocates have called the law a punitive attempt at dehumanizing and criminalizing people in unfortunate circumstances, largely the result of every increasing economic inequality.   [Read more…]

Don’t Be Distracted by a Word: The Issue Is Racism – Progressive Activist Calendar – January 12 -22, 2018

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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” – James Baldwin, No Name in the Street

Donald Trump could seek asylum in Moscow tomorrow, and the programs built on the legacy of hate that he embodies would continue to advance.

There is a connection between the City of El Cajon’s schemes to starve out the homeless, County DA Summer Stephan’s blind eye toward law enforcement officers malfeasance, the resurrection of the war on crime nationally, and a ‘whites first’ immigration policy.   [Read more…]

One Down, One to Go OR Will Darrell Replace Duncan?

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It’s possible both the 49th and the 50th district Congressional seats could end up remaining Republican.

Messages of congratulations for people who’d persisted and protested outside Rep. Darrell Issa’s office for over a year rolled in from all over the country yesterday.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow noted “Now that he’s actually retiring, they’re celebrating by teaching other activists about what they did,” and shared a 15 tweet how-to thread from San Diego Indivisible.   [Read more…]

Congressman Darrell Issa Calls It Quits! (Another One Bites the Dust)

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The Hill’s senior staff writer Scott Wong was first on Twitter with the news this morning, linking to a story posted by the liberal news site OCDaily.net saying Congressman Darrell Issa was going to announce his resignation. 

A few minutes later, Politico officially broke the story.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) will not seek reelection, he announced Wednesday — the latest sign of a growing Democratic wave in this year’s midterm elections.

Issa, first elected in 2000, served as the House GOP’s chief interrogator of the Obama administration as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee earlier this decade. But the political environment in his Southern California district shifted rapidly in recent years: Issa only won reelection by just over 1,600 votes in 2016, while Hillary Clinton carried the traditionally Republican seat in the presidential election by 7 percentage points.
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Will San Diego’s ‘Fake Homeless’ Issue Be a Winner for a 2018 City Council Campaign?

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The weather has turned angry. It’s raining and blustery outside as I’m writing this. It’s a bad time to be a human living without a roof over their head.  

I’m also angry. I’ve just seen a video of a supposedly leading Democratic candidate for City Council who seems to think she can win by fanning the flames of hate towards our city’s homeless.

Here’s the money quote from District 2 candidate Dr. Jen Campbell, speaking to a group on Thursday, January 4:

“You see all those panhandlers on the corners? They’re probably not even homeless! They’re just pretending they are. They’re begging. Do they have a license? I doubt it. In the city they have to have a license. Is anyone checking that? No. We don’t have enough police!”

UPDATE: Dr. Campbell has issued a statement apologizing for her remarks. I’ve posted her remarks as a standalone story.   [Read more…]

BREAKING: Trump’s Coming to San Diego to Visit His Beloved Border Wall

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Multiple news outlets are reporting on plans for the President to visit San Diego for a look at border wall prototypes sometime after his January 30th State of the Union address. A visit planned for this week was canceled after an opportunity arose to attend the Georgia – Alabama college championship game in Atlanta.

In recent days the administration has taken a noticeably harder line on the border, using a request for $18 billion in funding for the wall as a precondition to any agreement on Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the Obama-era program ended by Trump offering protections to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as youth.

Speaking from Camp David last weekend, Trump told reporters, “We want the wall. The wall’s going to happen or we’re not going to have DACA.”   [Read more…]

San Diego Politics Remain Poisoned as Labor Leader Mickey Kasparian Gets Sanitized Via ‘Due Process’

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Former UFCW Local 135 employees Isabel Vasquez and Sandy Naranjo have settled civil cases involving sexual harassment and political retaliation claims against labor leader Mickey Kasparian.

Since the initial claims were made by the women Kasparian has left (or was removed by the AFL-CIO, depending on who is speaking) the leadership of the local labor council, but remains as president of the UFCW.

He created a breakaway labor coalition whose financial clout discouraged attempts by activists to pressure the Democratic party and many local politicians to distance themselves.   [Read more…]

Rep. Duncan Hunter Lets Loose in TV Interview – Progressive Activist Calendar, January 6-16, 2018

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Congressman Duncan Hunter’s Thursday morning interview with Good Morning San Diego on KUSI was amazing. The Indivisible Team San Diego had a field day with his comments, issuing a press release so good that I’m borrowing heavily from it for the intro to today’s column.

When a suspect complains about prosecutorial prejudice while the investigation is still ongoing, it’s a sign bad things are coming, like indictments or even jail time. And that’s exactly what the East County Congressman did, blaming individuals in the Department of Justice for intentionally delaying the resolution of their criminal investigation into misuse of his campaign funds.

The Congressman blamed the career ambitions of federal investigators who, he said, seek fame, and aim to do maximum damage to his campaign by dragging out the investigation into the 2018 election year.   [Read more…]

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