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San Diego Activism Abounds in January

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ML King Day Events, Inauguration Protests, Progressive Slates Vie for Democratic Party Power, and More…

There are now seven events being planned in response to the upcoming inauguration of Donald Trump as President. the All People’s Celebration with featured speaker Rev.  Dr. William J. Barber as the keynote speaker along with a separately organized protest march will mark Martin Luther King Day, and Democrats throughout the State of California are participating in mini-elections for party leadership posts.

Activism abounds in San Diego if you know where to look for it. I’ve been posting this progressive activism calendar on Fridays now for more than six months and every week I learn about new groups.   [Read more…]

Faulconer for Governor, Kill the Wabbit, Save the Chargers, and Other Post-Holiday News

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Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve officially entered the Twilight Zone in San Diego.

The Mayor of the second largest city in a State with the fastest GDP growth in the nation is exploring a run for Governor.

Which might seem unremarkable, except that poverty rates in the region anchored by San Diego have increased by more than 2% since the ‘recovery’ began, homelessness has nearly doubled, and he’s reportedly scheming to cough up $200 million for a football stadium concept soundly rejected by voters just two months ago.   [Read more…]

Russian Hacking and the 2016 Presidential Election

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Serious People are claiming that news accounts about Russian meddling in US elections are somehow equivalent to the Weapons of Mass Destruction stories peddled in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq. Or a liberal version of the group-think on the Trumpian right about millions of illegal aliens voting for Hillary Clinton.

And then there are others on the right, like the Heritage Foundation, who would have us believe the special relationship between two oligarchs is somehow a good thing. They find much to admire about having a strongman in charge, as opposed to an imperfect democracy.

The reluctance of the FBI/Homeland Security report to disclose sources and methods along with the Obama’s administration’s reliance on the (often meaningless) tactic of diplomatic expulsions as the public side of their response to Russia are cited as reasons to doubt the official account.
  [Read more…]

Anti Choice Women’s Clinics Seek to Defy State Law in San Diego County and El Cajon

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Editor Note: This article was originally published on March 15, 2016. The effort to erode women’s reproductive rights and access to health services here in San Diego was one of the under-reported stories of 2016.

The County of San Diego and the City of El Cajon are considering a proposed settlement with anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers, amounting to a pledge not enforce the Reproductive FACT Act.

In response, local pro-choice activists are presenting El Cajon City Attorney Morgan Foley and San Diego County Counsel Thomas Montgomery with petitions signed by 25,000 Californians urging them to enforce the letter and the spirit of the law.

NARAL Pro-Choice California, UltraViolet and Courage Campaign have been gathering signatures since the anti-choice organizations offered to remove local authorities as named defendants in lawsuits if they agree not to apply the law.   [Read more…]

Five San Diego Protests Planned for Trump Inauguration Weekend

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The ugly reality of the Trump era is coming more into focus every day as announcements about billionaires, generals, and bigots joining his cabinet are made.

Today, in addition to my usual list of upcoming progressive events in San Diego, I’m looking ahead to the activist actions being planned for the weekend of the inauguration. In addition to local events, there are already rallies, demonstrations, and marches planned for more than 60 cities worldwide.

The local events are still not quite focused, and I expect the lineup will change over the next month. The one that looks to be the biggest will be the Women’s March on January 21st. You can read about them all following next week’s events listed below.   [Read more…]

The Agony of Sandy Hook Continues Four Years Later

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Sane people had their hearts broken four years ago today. Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza first shot and killed his mother, then went to Sandy Hook Elementary School, opened fire and killed 20 children and six staff members before killing himself.

The massacre in Newtown Connecticut was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. It was also, as New York magazine points out, “the first major American tragedy subjected to the full force of the internet’s conspiratorial machinery in real time.”

Insane (a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction) people adopted this tragedy as the gateway into a fact-free world, brimming with conspiracy theories, and full of hatred for the victims and their families.   [Read more…]

City Council, Day One: New Faces, Old Politics

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“Love rescue me, come forth and speak to me,” lyrics from a Bob Dylan/U2 song, echoed across Horton Plaza as current and newly-elected city officials, including the mayor, city council and city attorney, streamed into the Balboa Theater on Monday.

The Voices of Our City Choir, most of whom are homeless, were there serving as a reminder of the inhumane practices that are the end result of years of neglect, greed, and incompetence in local government.

Speakers at the People’s Inaugural, representing the voices of the dispossessed and downtrodden, called out for Emergency Humanitarian Action, urging the Mayor to suspend the ticketing, arrest of, and stay away orders for unsheltered homeless San Diegans.   [Read more…]

Making Sense of the CIA’s Story on Comrade Trump’s Campaign

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On Friday afternoon, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell of a story making the claim that disinformation/hacking efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign were aimed at supporting the candidacy of President-elect Donald Trump.

On Saturday, the New York Times took it a step further, reporting that the Russians had also hacked the Republicans’ data, but didn’t disclose it out of antipathy to the Clinton campaign.

At that point the domestic political universe as I know it collapsed. (Some) Republicans became overtly pro-Putin. (Some) Democrats called for a new Cold War. And the conspiracy-driven quadrant of the internet universe collapsed into a heap.   [Read more…]

Wanna Fight Trump? Start by Acting Locally

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Join the San Diego People’s Inaugural, Monday, December 12

…I caution fellow Democrats: make your focus the American people, not Trump. We will defeat him one day, and when we do, we better have something to offer people. –Congressman Keith Ellison   [Read more…]

Take Your Football Stadium and Shove It, Mr. Spanos!

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These are extraordinary times, and for a passionate progressive like myself, it’s hard to look away from the Basket of Deplorables being assembled to run the country’s executive branch.

But for today we need to discuss something both local and deplorable. Another hair-brained idea to build a downtown stadium for the San Diego Chargers is making the rounds, coming out of a Wednesday sit-down between Mayor Kevin Faulconer and team owners Dean Spanos.

After getting his ass handed to him at the ballot box in 2016 (56% voted No on a stadium measure requiring two-thirds approval), Spanos is counting on a future court ruling lowering the threshold to a simple majority, and on Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s desire to have the Los Angeles market all to himself.   [Read more…]

One Million People Demand Republicans Keep Their Hands Off Medicare

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This morning Democratic party leaders from the House and Senate, along with representatives from seniors and activist organizations, delivered more than one million petition signatures demanding that President Elect Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) keep their hands off the American people’s earned Medicare benefits.

Medicare and Medicaid provide health insurance to one-third of all Americans.

Although Donald Trump ran on a pledge not to touch Medicare, House Speaker Ryan has already announced plans to abolish the program through privatization. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), one of Ryan’s closest allies and an ardent foe of Medicare, has been nominated to be Health and Human Services Secretary.   [Read more…]

California Legislators, School Boards Brace for Trump’s Assault on Immigrants

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President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration may be six weeks away. Elected officials in Sacramento and San Diego are already taking actions aimed at shielding those who may be victimized by the new administration.

Newly sworn in lawmakers at the State capitol proposed legislation providing attorneys to immigrants in the country illegally, refusing to aid any proposed registry of Muslim immigrants and requiring voter approval for any wall built along the Mexican border.

This evening San Diego Unified School Board will likely approve a resolution to protect all of its 130,000 students and staff in the district.   [Read more…]

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