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The Clear Broth of Actual Reform in San Diego

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Union-Tribune columnist Logan Jenkins has produced an essay warning about the Citizens’ Plan for the Responsible Management of Major Tourism and Entertainment Resources, a proposed June 2016 ballot measure currently in the signature-gathering stage. It’s complicated, he says, begging for a re-write by Ernest Hemmingway

Initiatives, we’re taught as an axiom, are supposed to be clear broth. This one is a bouillabaisse stocked with personal hobbyhorses.

The funny thing is, I don’t remember being taught that axiom. It certainly wasn’t in play when the city’s establishment lined up to back Carl DeMaio’s “solution” to San Diego’s pension problems.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Climate Action Plan: Too Little, Too Late? Too Much, Too Soon?

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Plans to address the issues surrounding climate change are getting top billing in the news this week.

San Diego’s City Council is poised to approve a climate action plan full of ambitious goals and may be short on actual means to achieve those goals. Representatives from around the planet are meeting in Paris over the coming days, hoping to gain consensus on a strategy to steer the world’s economies away from fossil fuel dependence.

Today I’ll report and comment on the latest developments on San Diego’s Action Plan and the challenges it faces, even as almost the entire local political establishment pays it lip service.   [Read more…]

So a Right Wing Nut Job with a Gun Walks into a Planned Parenthood Office…

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Friday’s shootout at the Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs left three people dead, nine people wounded and right-wingers scrambling to distance themselves from an act of terrorism.

Misogyny, alienation and insanity were likely driving forces behind the actions of the 59-year-old white male who surrendered to police after the five hour seize. From what I’ve been able to ascertain, he had no ties to organized hate groups.

As the media and their sources in law enforcement have proclaimed the dozen or so “lone wolf” attacks in recent years to have been inspired by radical Islam,” it would appear what happened in Colorado Springs was a lone wolf attack inspired by radical right-wing righteousness.   [Read more…]

Climate Change, Republican Troglodytes and Price Gouging

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If you look past the preordained stories about Black Friday either being a success, disaster or nothing-burger for shoppers, the coming climate summit in Paris is the big story of this holiday weekend.

The United Nations meeting, Nov. 30-Dec 11, will discuss the wording of an international treaty to try to prevent climate change getting out of hand. Prognosticators are saying we should expect an agreement pointing in the right direction, but lacking enough enforceable specifics to really solve the complex problem of saving the planet from ourselves.

Much of what needs to be done will end up being the task of local and regional governments. California Gov. Jerry Brown has been brokering his own international climate agreement with regional governments, including states and provinces in Brazil, Germany and Mexico. They’ve agreed to cut their emissions 80 percent or more by mid-century.   [Read more…]

Black Lives Matter on Black Friday

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Two elements of the ugly side of our society and economy are coming together this week.

Black Lives Matter groups and their supporters in cities around the country, including San Diego, are staging Friday protests and urging people not to shop. Events in Alabama, Washington state, Chicago and Minneapolis have served to bolster their case about the pervasiveness of racism.

Black Friday sales events stand as reminders of the false prosperity of the consumer economy. Retail workers and supporters will be ending a fifteen day fast as they picket outside WalMart heiress Alice Walton’s apartment in New York City and various locations around the country.   [Read more…]

Kill The Damn Turkeys, Already! GOP Voters Disapprove of Presidential Pardons

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Public Policy Polling is out with a survey of Americans holiday preferences and, much like the Thanksgiving dinner consumed by many, there’s something for every taste.

Republicans surveyed opposed President Obama’s pardoning of two turkeys last year by a 27% margin. Democrats and Independents approved of the executive order.

I wish I could say this was satire, but it’s not. From the PPP press release:

“Republicans are so opposed to everything President Obama wants to do that they even take issue with his handling of the traditional Thanksgiving turkey pardon,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “It’s pretty hard to work across party lines on real issues against that backdrop.”   [Read more…]

Anti-Muslim Bigotry in San Diego; Trump’s Racist Rampage Continues

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A female Muslim student at San Diego State University was assaulted on campus last week. An unknown male, believed to be a SDSU student, pushed her and pulled her by her hijab while making hate comments and threats based on her religious appearance.

An unidentified pregnant woman, dressed in a traditional Muslim headscarf and pushing her child in a stroller in Mission Valley, was stopped by an unidentified man making racially charged threats. He went so far as to push her stroller back into her.

Those are just the most recent two of the 170 reported threats against Muslims in San Diego this year, according to officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Muslim Student Association organized a rally at SDSU for today, urging the community at large to come make a statement against Islamophobia.   [Read more…]

Rep. Scott Peters Votes with Republican Fear Mongers on Refugees

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Congressman Scott Peters joined with Republicans yesterday to vote yes on hastily drafted legislation creating a micromanaged immigration process essentially barring refugees from Syria and Iraq, including those who served alongside U.S. troops. The bill is H.R. 4038, the so-called “American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act.

If there’s a bright side to this dark moment in American history, it’s that this vote was largely symbolic. Despite the lopsided number of ayes in the House, this act of political cowardice isn’t likely to make it through the Senate with enough votes to overcome the President’s veto.

The rationale for Democrats who supported this legislation was two-fold; it was moderate in that it didn’t include a religious test for entering the US demanded by right-wing extremists and a fear (that’s the operative word here) they’d be branded as soft on terrorism in the 2016 elections.   [Read more…]

The Citizens’ Plan Offers San Diegans a Say in Tourism

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Oh, what a tangled web we weave in San Diego. Tourism tax dollars go into private coffers. Hotel owners snap their fingers and elected officials bow down before them. Our local politicians say and the media convey our most pressing needs as a meeting hall and a place to play football. The mayor fills potholes for TV cameras to make citizens feel better about it all.

The spoilers in all this have been lawsuits. The biggest one of them all is likely coming  to trial shortly after the first of the year. San Diego’s hoteliers have spent millions of tourism tax dollars defending the indefensible. Their attempts to shoot the messenger, both in the courts and in the media seem doomed to fail.

It may sound a little complicated, but there is a way to straighten this mess out.  A proposed initiative that would change the current system rolls out today, endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, and a host of others to be made public at an upcoming press conference.   [Read more…]

Dr. Ben Carson Brings (Terrorist Recruiting) Campaign to San Diego

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Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson was in San Diego yesterday, ostensibly appearing at campaign fundraisers in La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe.

The big news, however, continues to be Republican cooperation with the idea of spreading fear and loathing outside the Caliphate, as Carson and other candidates have wasted no time in exploiting the Paris attacks as a way to prove who’s “tougher” on terrorism.

In doing so, they’ve fallen right into ISIS’ trap. They might as well open terrorist recruiting offices in major cities.   [Read more…]

Conservatives Cry Wolf About Refugee Terror Threat

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Right-wing politicians in the United States are working overtime to drum up fears about refugees in the wake of last weekend’s terrorism in Paris. Today we’ll look at the coverage of the cowardly lions and the facts which, unsurprisingly, don’t support their case.

Twelve million people have fled their homes in Syria over the past five years. Four million of those displaced have fled the country, coming mostly from what’s left of the once-burgeoning middle class. Half of those leaving the country are children.

At present, the United States is poised to accept 10,000 refugees in the coming year. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the United States has taken in 1,800 refugees. It is likely some of the refugees well be resettled through San Diego, given the existing infrastructure.
  [Read more…]

Hillary Held Her Own at Dems Debate; Sanders Needs to Step Up His Game

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I guess I have to start out by saying Senator Bernie Sanders is the democratic candidate whose positions align most closely with my own. I will, given the opportunity, cast my vote for him in the California primary.

Having put that disclaimer up first, I’ll go on to say that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won (by not losing) in Saturday’s Democratic Debate. Yes, I know that Sanders won every straw poll out there. I also know that Ron Paul won a lot of straw polls in 2012.

Straw polls don’t replace actual canvassing, social media interest is an unreliable predictor for election results, and the photos of overwhelmingly white male attendees at Sanders watch parties are a big warning flag about vital segments of the electorate that are not engaged with the campaign.   [Read more…]

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