San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Doug Porter

White Trash in the White House Talks Education, Immigration, Taxes

by

So much outrage, so little time. Here’s what I read about over coffee this morning:

One. Does anybody remember when Republicans got mad at Barack Obama for not wearing a tie in the Oval Office? The current President thinks the White House is a “dump,” and the silence of his sheeples is deafening.

Two. Donald J. Trump is President of the United States of America, and we’re really supposed to believe mediocre white people aren’t getting a fair shake. The New York Times reported on a Justice Department scheme to begin “investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants.”

Three. If you think the administration’s plan for health care reform was a sadistic attack on regular working people, wait until you see Trump’s tax plan.   [Read more…]

Bombshell Report Details SANDAG Misdeeds, Cover-Up

by

The Board of Directors for the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) will be convening on the morning of Friday, August 4 to hear results from an investigation by the law firm Hueston Hennigan into reports published in Voice of San Diego concerning misrepresentations about revenue forecasts used to promote ballot measures.

SANDAG is the forum for regional decision-making and the primary public planning, transportation, and research agency for all of the county. Last year the agency failed to pass a tax increase designed to fund projects for decades to come. Questions about its policies, leadership, and staff now stand in the way of progress for the region.

The report, commissioned by the SANDAG board as an independent inquiry, confirms allegations that employees of the agency knew there was a problem and attempted to communicate unsuccessfully with higher-ups selling the public on a proposed ballot measure.   [Read more…]

SANDAG’s American Values Problem

by

A tweet from Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez pushed me over the edge on the subject of SANDAG, regional planning organization for San Diego County.

Gonzalez was responding to a statement from El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells at an SANDAG board meeting last week seemingly questioning her origins and, by implication, her citizenship.

A further communication between the Assemblywoman and the Mayor, also posted on twitter, clarified his intention: to say she was somehow against “American values.”   [Read more…]

What If Trump Fires Mueller? Progressive Activist Calendar for San Diego: July 28- August 6, 2017

by

Area Activists Have a Plan…

The President and his defenders have been actively seeking a way to disrupt Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into allegations of illegal activities surrounding the 2016 general election.

What started out as a response to reports of Russian interference has now expanded into money laundering and shady real estate deals. It’s important to remember also there is at least one State Attorney General investigation (New York) into the financial side of Donald Trump’s empire.

Activists with MoveOn, Public Citizen, and Indivisible San Diego (among others) are laying the groundwork for local responses to actions the President may take along these lines.   [Read more…]

Women Led, McCain Followed, Trump Lost, as GOP Healthcare Scheme Fails (For Now)

by

I love the feeling of victory in the morning.

For six months lots of people worked very hard to oppose the Republican “Repeal or Replace” healthcare scam, designed to make the rich richer, the rest of us poorer, and take a big first step towards undoing Medicaid, Medicare, and ultimately Social Security.  

The other side lied. They cheated. They bullied and bribed. WE persisted, led by women principled enough to remain focused on what needed to be done. The marches, the phone calls, the emails, the letters to the editor all added up to be enough to stop this spiteful and reactionary strategy. For now.

Let us celebrate today, thank our allies, take a deep breath, and get ready for the next round of reaction. This victory will not go unnoticed. The attacks on people of good will are already underway.   [Read more…]

Escondido Activists Seek to Block Public Library Privatization

by

Escondido Indivisible, in cooperation with Neighbors in Action, and the Escondido Democratic Club is organizing people to save their public library from being privatized.

The Escondido Public Library dates back to 1894 and is currently visited by an average of 1,435 people daily. The total collection in the facility amounts to 200,000 books, and users are fearful many of those volumes would be gone if a contractor operates the library.

Escondido City manager Jeff Epps claims the city is simply studying a proposal by Maryland-based Library Systems & Services (“LS&S”) to take over operations.   [Read more…]

Issa Says Obamacare is ‘Stalin-type Socialism,’ Advocates for ‘Freedom’ (to Die)

by

Repealing Obamacare is a choice between free market and Stalin-type socialism, said San Diego Congressman Darrell Issa on a call-in radio show this week.

The health care bill written by Republicans on beverage napkins over lunch on Thursday affecting one-sixth of the economy is, I gather, all about “freedom,” the GOP’s code word for unfettered greed, lack of empathy, and government-enforced poverty.  

The pieces of “Skinny Repeal” we already know about will raise insurance premiums by 20% while causing 16 million fewer people to have coverage next year. Americans who are low-income, older or living in rural communities would no longer be able to afford insurance — while the savings from the bill would be applied to tax cuts for the wealthy.   [Read more…]

President Trump Plays Trans Bigot Card As Senate Mulls ‘Skinny Repeal’

by

UPDATE: Politico reports Trump’s ban on transgender military service was a trade off for border wall funding votes in the House.

So much winning! The President of the United States has had a remarkable week so far, hijacking a Boy Scout Jamboree by leading them to boo his political opponents, held a campaign rally in Ohio saying only Abraham Lincoln was more Presidential than he was, and issued an executive tweet banning transgender people from the military without informing the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, Trump’s minions in the Senate are slogging along, trying to find a way to save face with their big donors on their promises to eliminate health care access to millions of people.   [Read more…]

Crowdfunding Keeps Snopes.com Alive, For Now

by

The granddaddy of debunking online rumors and hoaxes has escaped a brush with death, thanks to $500,000 worth of donations from nearly 20,000 people on GoFundMe in less than 24 hours.

Snopes.com made a plea for readers to step up on Monday, as a shared-ownership contract dispute with a vendor operating its back-end advertising and development platforms became critical.

The company’s income from advertising dried up in March following a 60-day contract cancellation notice sent to Proper Media, a San Diego-based vendor at the heart of this dispute.   [Read more…]

Reefer Madness at Trump’s Justice Department

by

The US Department of Justice is preparing to crack down on marijuana use following the release of a report later this week claiming the drug is linked violent crime.

The Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, organized by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is expected to recommend tougher sentences for those caught growing, selling and smoking pot.

Sessions also promised a Task Force subcommittee would “explore our use of asset forfeiture and make recommendations on any improvements needed to legal authorities, policies, and training to most effectively attack the financial infrastructure of criminal organizations.”   [Read more…]

Innocent People Don’t Need Preemptive Pardons – Progressive Activist Calendar for San Diego: July 21- 31, 2017

by

The first 44 Presidents of the United States didn’t contemplate pardoning their children. Now we’ve learned number 45 may be breaking this precedent.

The Washington Post is reporting that Trump is discussing the possibility of pardoning himself, his family, and his closest aides in response to news about investigators looking into his finances as well as his campaign’s complicity in Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election.

His legal team, according to reporting at the Post and a NY Times story, is digging up dirt on the special counsel investigators in an attempt to discredit them.

The media is rife with speculation concerning the employment security of the Attorney General and the Special Counsel.

For right now, it’s all just talk. But the President’s disregard for constitutionally derived checks and balances has never been clearer.   [Read more…]

Just How Safe is Congressman Duncan Hunter’s Job?

by

California’s 50th Congressional District, which encompasses much of East San Diego County, wouldn’t normally seem like a seat worth fighting for by Democrats. But these are not normal times.

In last year’s general election, 63.5% percent of voters in the district cast ballots for Republican Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, beating out Donald Trump’s 54.6% margin.

Hunter inherited the seat from his father, Duncan Lee Hunter, who mounted a failed campaign for President in 2008. The half-serious joke in political circles is that many voters didn’t realize Dad had retired after 14 terms.

Duncan D. Hunter’s political career has been troubled as of late.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry