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Post-Election: Infighting & Hate Speech vs Emerging Local Actions

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The shock and awe phase of the post-election period is winding down. Now the question ‘what next?’ is coming to the forefront of public consciousness.

Lots of people have ideas. Some of them are pipe dreams. Some of them are impractical. And some of them will evolve into what I can only hope is a wave of widespread, sustained, and effective resistance to the Trump administration’s policy proposals. (Friday’s column will focus on San Diego-oriented activities.)

For the moment what people are protesting is the very idea of Trump taking over the executive branch along with promises made on the campaign trail. It’s a murky mess to organize against because the man has no plan and his advisors are squabbling.   [Read more…]

Facebook’s Complicity in Trump’s New Order

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In the 21st century world of social media as a source of news and information, the truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Tell a lie on Facebook and you’ll likely be rewarded with a large audience. Tell (for some) an unpleasant truth and the vigilantes of darkness will leverage their technical expertise to get an offending account expunged.

A made up story from a Macedonian site claiming Hillary Clinton had once said candidates like Donald Trump should run for office because they were honest and couldn’t be bought garnered more than twice the response (in a week) of the New York Times exclusive story (over a month period) revealing the GOP nominee declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns.

Diverse media outlets including the New York Times and the MIT Technology Review are examining how much those fake headlines influenced the election. New York Magazine cut to the chase with the headline “Donald Trump won because of Facebook.”   [Read more…]

Bin Laden Won from the Grave on November 8, 2016

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In some deep, dark corner of hell, Osama Bin Laden must be having a good laugh. Fifteen-plus years after his group leveraged a half-million dollars in costs into a $4 trillion hit on the global economy, the after-shocks continue to eat away at the core of the secular democracy he so despised.

While a good part of the al-Qaeda plan may have been to provoke the United States to increase its military and cultural presence in the Middle East, it also spawned a rot domestically.

I would argue there is a definable link from much of the US response to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center with the economic and political conditions making possible the election of Donald J. Trump as President.

It’s not the only reason or even the main reason. But there’s a connection.   [Read more…]

San Diego Democrats Dominate in Local Contests

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San Diego Democrats came away with an impressive set of victories in the 2016 general elections, though you wouldn’t have known it from all the glum faces at election central on Tuesday night.

The implications of their party’s loss at the top of the ticket ruined the night for most folks. The question remaining now is how effective Democrats in San Diego and California will be in the face of a tidal wave of reaction coming out of Washington DC.

How bad is it? It’s so bad that Congressman Duncan Hunter, Jr has emerged as one of those being vetted for a position in Trump administration’s Department of Defense.   [Read more…]

Here’s the Hate From Donald Trump’s Followers

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We’re sharing a compendium of tweets seen by SDFP editors on social media since election night.

Anybody who has any doubt about what’s coming and the need to organize, mobilize, and fight back should read these all the way through.

Does anybody have a plan yet? Not that we know of. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

That doesn’t mean people aren’t working on it.

Stay angry, my friends; build a network; give hugs where needed.   [Read more…]

Let’s Do This, People. Calls to Action & Nationwide Anti-Trump Protests

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Emerging from shock and denial over the results of the 2016 Presidential election, protesters took to the streets in more than two dozen cities nationwide, including San Diego.

Carrying signs including slogans like #NotMyPresident, “Misogyny Has to Go”, “Black Lives Matter” and “Trump Makes America Hate,” demonstrators carried flags and effigies of the president-elect, disrupted traffic, and declared a refusal to accept Trump’s victory.   [Read more…]

California Goes a Different Way in 2016: Election Reactions & Results

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San Diego, Statewide Results on Propositions, Legislative & Federal Offices

Voters in the State of California opted for more progressive choices when it came to elected officials than most of the rest of the country.

Nationally, it should be noted marijuana measures did well (except Arizona), as did minimum wage increases, and paid sick leave, along with reform-oriented local prosecutors.

(It’s a two-column day, folks. Look for coverage of protests & calls for action in a subsequent piece, posted as fast as I can type.)   [Read more…]

Trump’s Triumph: The Gut & the Butt Won vs the Head & the Heart

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Like many of you, I’m feeling shocked and scared this morning. Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the United States. Let’s work together to make sense of this looming reality. (I’ll write at another time in the near future about state and local contests, and there was much good news there.)

The people Trump villainized in his campaign have every right to be terrified. His win was a victory for authoritarianism, nativism, misogyny, and racism. Those who support cultural reaction will feel and act empowered by his victory.

But this is not why Trump won. His victory came for economic reasons in addition to those aforementioned causes. He promised prosperity after getting people’s attention by playing to their fears. His ultimate appeal came down to ‘a chicken in every pot.’   [Read more…]

2016 Elections: And The Loser Is….The News Media

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It’s mid-morning on November 8, 2016, and I have a solid gut feeling about how this election will turn out. Nobody will get everything they want, but the forces of light will stave off darkness, at least for another few years.

I am reminded of Unitarian reformer and abolitionist Theodore Parker’s quote, later modified by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”   [Read more…]

Campaign 2016: Almost Over & Your Vote Still Matters

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The emotional and political roller coaster otherwise known as the 2016 elections is coming to an end. This may be hard to believe but, like the amusement park ride, we’re ending up just about where we started.

The American people knew where they stood on the final two major party candidates in January and statistically speaking that view hasn’t changed one iota ten months later.

MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow pointed this out: 40% of the electorate had a positive view about Hillary Clinton in January, and the name percentage holds true as of October. Donald Trump’s numbers are 29%(January) and 29%(October).   [Read more…]

The Russians Are Coming! And Other Last Minute Election Tales

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The 2016 election season is almost over. And even for a guy like myself who considers himself a political junkie, it’s been too much.

I wish the campaigns would be over come November 9th, but there’s increasing evidence to suggest that isn’t going to be the case.

Here are today’s rumors, planted stories and breaking news.   [Read more…]

A Fifth Column Inside the FBI

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The Daily Beast’s Wayne Barrett has written a blockbuster of a story detailing the rebellion going on inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It’s a tale of active and former agents, many of them with ties to former NYC Mayor Rudy Guliani, whose actions amount to a law enforcement thumb on the scale of democracy.

Guliani’s law firm has long been general counsel to the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), which represents 13,000 former and current agents. The group’s leader, agent Rey Tariche, resigned from the FBI New York office on Monday following Director James Comey’s release of a memo saying the agency was once agin looking into Hillary Clinton.   [Read more…]

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