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Congressional Values: “Zippidy do-da, zippidy day.”

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By Doug Porter

Speaker of the House John Boehner was singing the classic Disney ditty as he walked in for a Friday morning press conference where he shocked just about everybody by announcing his resignation.

While Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is considered a probable successor to Boehner as Speaker, it’s worthwhile to look at the recently concluded 10th annual Value Voters Summit for some context about the changes taking place.

It was, after all, the crowd at the political conference for American social conservative activists that gave a standing ovation after hearing news of the Ohio congressman’s resignation.   [Read more…]

Haggen Stores Closing: Corporate Greed Costs Eight Thousand Jobs in California

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By Doug Porter

Less than six months since taking over 146 Albertsons and Vons locations, the Haggen grocery chain has announced closings for all its locations in California, Arizona and Nevada. Twenty-five stores in San Diego county will be shuttered, just two days before Thanksgiving.  (More inside)

Pope Francis gave his long-awaited address to Congress yesterday. Local faith, community and labor activists took the opportunity to amplify the pontiff’s messages on the social justice and the environment, holding a press conference and a packed interfaith forum at St. Paul’s Cathedral. (More Inside)

There are many noteworthy events coming soon:

  • Point Loma Democrats will feature a presentation by Rabbi Laurie Coskey on the fight for $15 movement,
  • The Center on Policy Initiatives will hosting the Spotlight on Justice Awards, and
  • Organized labor is stepping up its game with the 2015 San Diego Conference on Labor and Community Solidarity.

(Details and more events inside)   [Read more…]

Poverty and Pollution in San Diego, Bike Lane Madness in Coronado, Labor Troubles in Oceanside

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By Doug Porter

America’s Finest City and its neighbors have got a lot of work to do.

The Center on Policy Initiatives has finished crunching the 2014 census data released last week, finding the number of San Diegans living in official poverty continues to increase. Seniors, children and minority populations are disproportionally impacted, with 41.5% of adults living in poverty reporting they had jobs in 2014.

The Climate Action Campaign and Circulate San Diego released a report on Wednesday critical of regional planning proposals, saying current efforts will undermine one of the main goals of the city’s climate action plan.

The icing on the cake for the day was a report from KPBS about a successful effort in Coronado to halt additional bike lanes based on citizen complaints about “paint stripe pollution.”   [Read more…]

DeMaio-Reed Pension Measure Flops, For Now

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By Doug Porter

Former City Councilman Carl DeMaio, along with former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, are headed back to the drawing board, following the failure of their latest pension “reform” ballot proposal to gain traction in California.

DeMaio and Reed were hoping to attract funding and political support for a pension reform initiative involving voter approval for each and every future plan throughout the state, negating what is now part of the collective bargaining process.

The California Republican Party failed to endorse the measure during its Anaheim convention last weekend. DeMaio and Reed cried foul last month after the State Attorney General’s office gave the proposed reforms ballot language not to their liking.   [Read more…]

Junipero Serra’s Sainthood Dismays Many

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By Doug Porter

Eighteenth century Franciscan missionary Junipero Serra will be canonized by Pope Francis this week. Hailed by the church as “the evangelizer of west in the United States” and reviled by descendants of the indigenous people living along the coast, Serra’s ascension to sainthood is a controversial move.

The expulsion of the Jesuit order from the Spanish colonies by King Carlos III brought Serra to Baja California. In 1769, the government, fearful of intrusions by Russian traders to the north, dispatched the Franciscans to what we now call California.  Serra founded nine missions, starting with the Mission San Diego de Alcalá and went about the business of ‘civilizing’ the local inhabitants.

Tales of the conquest of California by Spanish soldiers and Catholic missionaries by supporters of the church tend towards laying the blame for much of the ensuing slaughter on the military. Serra viewed the native population as children, children who needed the kind of brutal discipline meted out by the Franciscan order in order to find salvation.   [Read more…]

Now is the Time to Investigate Climate Change Deniers Under RICO

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By Doug Porter

A letter signed by twenty leading scientists sent to the Justice Department and White House asking for a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change is getting renewed attention in light of last week’s disclosures about a decades-long effort to suppress important research.

Pulitzer Prize winning Inside Climate News published results of an investigation based on emails obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists recently showing that Exxon’s own scientists warned company executives in 1977 about global warming caused by fossil fuels.     [Read more…]

The Pope Isn’t Coming to San Diego – Don’t Let That Be Your Excuse for Doing Nothing

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By Doug Porter

Pope Francis is coming to the United States next week, and will bump the Trump off the top off the news pile. His message will be somewhat different than what Americans are used to hearing from the Catholic Church. Already Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has written a letter saying he’ll be boycotting the Pope’s address to Congress because of “socialist talking points…presented to guilt people into leftist policies.”

While I’ve got plenty of issues with Catholic Church* doctrine and policies, this is one of those times when perfection can be the enemy of progress. Let’s seize the moment and use the occasion to take action towards making the world a better place…

Or you can sit and stew. Your choice.   [Read more…]

GOP Debate: More Whoppers Than Burger King

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By Doug Porter

When there’s a stage full of candidates from a party with a tenuous connection to reality, there’s bound to be soooo many ‘misstatements’ to chose from. I’ve winnowed it down to what I thought were the two biggest: Carly Fiorina’s Planned Parenthood utterances and The Donald’s validation of an anti-vaxxer talking point… 

I originally thought about doing a running fact check on Wednesday’s CNN debate featuring their top 10 (plus 1) Republican candidates. But with two hours and forty-five minutes to digest, I realized it would be a fool’s errand.  Then it occurred to me that the act of watching CNN for anything longer than a minute or two was, in itself, a fool’s errand. Especially on a day when the weather was actually nice.

So I resolved to get up extra early to do my due diligence on the debate. This wrap-up took a while to write because I felt like I needed a shower afterwards. And I just skipped the Junior Varsity debate. I hear Trump won that one, too, despite not being on the stage.   [Read more…]

Jade Helm 15 Ends and #IStandWithAhmed Begins, Deep in the Heart of Texas

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By Doug Porter

Today, two examples from the Lone Star State strike me as indicative of a sort of mass paranoia that has become all too commonplace. I’m mindful of these stories in thinking about the CNN Republican Presidential debate, with unhinged ideas likely to be touted as reality.

Example #1 is a revisiting of an older baloney sandwich. The Jade Helm 15 training exercise, alleged to be cover for a military takeover has ended. This delusion was used for political gain by three of the Republican candidates for president and a plethora of right-wing acolytes. Nothing happened.

Example #2 is a heartbreaking story about a 14 year kid in Irving, Texas who wanted to show off his science skills. He ended up being arrested, fingerprinted, and held incommunicado after he brought a home made clock to school. Oh, and he has brown skin. And his name is Ahmed Mohamed.   [Read more…]

‘News’ Story Pleads Developers Cause on Civic San Diego Oversight Law

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By Doug Porter

This is why we can’t have nice things in San Diego. By this I mean the greed of the local billionaire class and the willingness of the Union-Tribune to publish lies on their behalf.

UT reporter Roger Showley was apparently called upon to create some propaganda following the legislature’s approval of Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s AB 504, a bill designed to strengthen oversight of organizations like Civic San Diego making land use decisions for cities.

It’s my guess this UT article represents a last ditch attempt to appeal to Gov. Jerry Brown in the hope he won’t sign the bill. (You never know with the Gov…)

Gonzalez and other civic activists saw the necessity for such a measure because San Diego is the only city in California that outsources permitting and planning functions to a nonprofit with minimal oversight. Attempts at oversight and citizen input have been continually stymied.   [Read more…]

GOP Candidate Proposes Abolishing the National Labor Relations Board

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By Doug Porter

Republican Scott Walker’s idea for turning around his diminishing poll numbers is to go big with his anti-union cred.

At a speech in Los Vegas, the Wisconsin Governor proposed scrapping the National Labor Relations Board, making right-to-work the default national standard for workplaces, eliminating public employee unions, restricting automatic withdrawal of dues, and forbidding union organizers to access employees personal information.  

In other words, he’s declared war. In the perfect world of Scott Walker, the US economy as far as employees are concerned would completely revert to the 1880’s. Yes, indeedy, get your beggars cups ready to catch whatever crumbs fall off the corporate tables.   [Read more…]

With Victories From Coast to Coast, Fight for $15 Has Always Been About More Than a Paycheck

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By Doug Porter

I went downtown on Thursday for a media event inspired by the Fight for Fifteen movement. Representatives from unions, community and faith groups gathered outside City Hall to hail recent victories and rededicate themselves to continue the campaign.

In recent weeks the country’s largest county government (Los Angeles County) and one of the biggest public university systems in the U.S. (University of California) raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. As fast food workers in New York were celebrating a win, Gov. Andrew Cuomo stood beside Vice President Joe Biden proposing $15 an hour legislation including an additional 3 million workers in other industries.  

This news is bittersweet for San Diego activists. They held aloft signs with quotes from mayors of other cities around California who’ve supported successful drives to increase the minimum wage, along with a sign quoting Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s excuse for opposing a much more modest increase.   [Read more…]

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