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Will the Coast Be Toast? Tuesday City Council Hearing on Vacation Rentals Will Decide

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December 12th Session Will Decide Future of Ocean Beach and Other Coastal Communities

If San Diego City Councilmembers from inland districts get their way and legalize short-term vacation rentals with hardly any restrictions, coastal neighborhoods like Ocean Beach will be inundated with a flood of new such rentals. And it could have a devastating impact on OB, uprooting the sparse housing stock and turning entire sections of the community into “Airbnb Beach”.

The City Council meets on Tuesday, December 12th, and come hell or high water will make policy on vacation rentals that day. Short-term rentals have been boiling San Diego politics for nearly 3 years as city government kept delaying any decisions, one way or another. And now, after all this time, the Council is set to put something into law, into the Municipal Code on the 12th.

Come next Tuesday, nothing but the very future of Ocean Beach is at stake.   [Read more…]

Televangelist Extremist Morris Cerullo Got His Disneyland Park in Mission Valley

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In October, San Diego City Council Approved 18-Acre Christian-Themed Center

In our continuing saga to track developments in Mission Valley, we have to note that just about one month ago, on October 17, the San Diego City Council approved televangelist Morris Cerullo’s $130 – 160 million Legacy International Center project. The Center will replace the former Mission Valley Resort at 875 South Hotel Circle Drive on an 18-acre site at the west end of Mission Valley.

That’s the main headline.

But what the Council also did was approve a mini Disneyland-type of religious theme park that will promote controversial religious tourism. This project will be owned by the head of an extremist Evangelical empire who is outspoken in his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage; who was expelled from India for religious disturbances; who is criticized by rabbis for trying to convert Jews; and whose disputed claims of being a faith healer and miracle worker have led to at least one documented death.   [Read more…]

If Trump Is Impeached Will His Base Mobilize Against a ‘Liberal Coup’?

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In one of the most provocative incidents involving self-styled neo-Nazis since Charlottesville, about 25 men in masks and bandanas descended on a progressive book fair in Houston, Texas, on Sunday, Sept. 24. They set off smoke bombs, shouted “Sieg Heil!”and “blood and soil!” and generally harassed folks at the event.

It was a story totally missed by mainstream media, but observed by reporters from AlterNet who filed a report, picked up by other progressive news sites:

They rushed the door of a multicultural community center [where children were inside], igniting a pair of smoke bombs. Together, they raised their arms in a salute of “Sieg Heil.” … After shouting “blood and soil” and other vulgar slogans for 15 minutes, they stole a handmade sign from the fair and fled the scene. They later posted photos of themselves defiantly clutching the cloth banner on social media. 

Police, who organizers claimed had appeared earlier in the day to intimidate the book fair’s participants, did not intervene. 

The masked men were part of a group called Patriot Front which is “loosely affiliated with Vanguard Front, a fascist organization” which includes James Alex Fields as a member, the man who murdered Heather Heyer at Charlottesville.   [Read more…]

Why Does Trump Keep Firing Up His Base?

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No matter the issue, Donald Trump always speaks reassuringly to his base — that 35percent of the electorate who are loyal supporters and have stood by him no matter what he says or does.

Even his speech at the United Nations was delivered directly to his base, with its trumpeting of the same nationalistic themes from the campaign, complete with derogatory nicknames — a style honed and lifted right out of his campaign — all to keep his supporters on the Trump train.

Cathleen Decker at the Los Angeles Times described it:

For Trump’s supporters, those [United Nations] headlines evoked one of his strengths, the belief that he speaks their language and is willing to disrupt the establishment anywhere, even in a stronghold such as the United Nations. … He has emphasized issues he knows are important to his followers….

Unlike any other White House head of state, Trump has time to travel around the country to Red States, staging boisterous campaign-like rallies where he continues to whip up his crowds with those favorites: Build the wall! Lock her up! Fake media!   [Read more…]

Competing Proposals on Short Term Vacation Rentals Vie for City Council Approval

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For two years now the City Council of San Diego has been debating what to do about short term vacation rentals. They’ll continue this debate at another hearing on the matter, October 23rd, the 6th hearing in those two years.

At that hearing, the city planning department will probably present draft alternative measures based on three options it released in March of this year, plus it will hopefully address new draft ordinances – one by Councilwoman Barbara Bry and one by Councilman Chris Cate.

Bry’s proposal – the most promising – was released last week after a weekend of Op-Ed pieces in the San Diego Union-Tribune by her and by her colleagues Lorie Zapf and Cate. Zapf, of course, represents District 2 including OB.   [Read more…]

The Right to Resist Foreign Intervention and Domestic Collaborators

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A good friend and I were discussing the whole Trump debacle the other night with all its Russian connections. At some point, he admitted he was exasperated about a certain and perhaps common progressive ambiguity with Russia and blurted out:

“I know we’re supposed to be against Russian of course and all of its meddling in our election, but – in some sense, Trump is right, the US has intervened in other countries and manipulated their elections, too.”

He rattled off a litany of countries and nations where the US has interfered – Iraq, Chile, Guatemala, Ghana, Iran, … it was a long list.

I offered a few: Vietnam, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Mexico. And even Russia itself during its civil war in the early 1920s.

He continued: “I don’t want to be hypocritical – but isn’t it hypocritical for the left to be so anti-Russia?”   [Read more…]

Trump and His Baja Resort Fiasco: ‘Just a Giant Hole in the Ground’

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Ever since Donald Trump announced he was running for president, reports began circulating in the press about all the various failures of his businesses.

These include the bankruptcy of his Atlantic City, New Jersey, casinos, the defunct Trump University here in San Diego where students successfully sued him, and, particularly, the troubles of his Trump Towers.

For instance, in the saga of the Trump Tower in Tampa, Florida, Trump sold the use of his name to developers of the $300 million condo project for $2 million. According to Rolling Stone, the developers collected down payments from investors but after the project went south in 2008, the snookered buyers sued Trump for misleading them. Trump did settle the suit, but plaintiffs lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.   [Read more…]

The Watergate Break-in, 45 Years Later

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It was the night of June 17, 1972, that 5 so-called “burglars” were caught red-handed inside the National Democratic Party Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, DC.

But as it turned out, not only did the burglars have CIA and anti-Castro Cuban connections – they also – and most importantly – were being paid out of a slush fund from the Committee to Re-Elect President Nixon, which was managed by the highest officials inside the White House.

The burglary of the Democratic Party’s HQ was just the tip of the iceberg – but it was that tip that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation on August 8th, 1974.   [Read more…]

Storms Brewing Over the Future of Mission Bay

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There are gray storms brewing over Mission Bay – or rather over the future of Mission Bay. And in particular, over the future of the northeast corner of Mission Bay, the largest aquatic park on the West Coast.

In a nutshell, there are conflicting visions over what should happen to the area at issue between the City of San Diego’s development plans versus what is envisioned by environmentalists, led by the San Diego Audubon Society.

Because of a confluence of changes to the northeast corner of Mission Bay, the future uses and development of it are now up for grabs. In some sense, it’s an all-too-familiar classic stand-off between the forces fighting to develop every corner of available land with those trying to preserve and enlarge the natural sections.   [Read more…]

Constitutional Crisis: Echoes of Watergate and a Whiff of Fascism

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Trump Firing of FBI Director Comey Sets Off Calls for Independent Investigator of Russia-Trump Connections

Echos of Watergate. May 9th, 2017 will go down in American history, much like Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre”.

It’s all over the news. In the middle of a FBI investigation into Trump’s connections with Russia, Trump fires the man at the head of that investigation.   [Read more…]

Victor Ochoa – Mural Maestro of Chicano Park

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As we were sitting in Victor Ochoa’s studio garage in Golden Hill the other day, I realized that even though we’d been friends since the late 1970’s, I didn’t know a whole lot about his earlier life before those heady days of the Seventies decade. I was wondering whether he remembered that I had helped arrange for him to be hired to paint murals at the Che Cafe up at UCSD – way back in in 1980 and 81. He did but he had a few different details.

“This is my favorite garage,” Victor said, as we settled in for our talk. Surrounding us on three sides inside the garage were painting materials and large plastic bins holding more painting stuff stacked up on shelves, brushes, cans of paint piled on each other, cans of spray paint in a shallow closest. There was a gas-powered airbrush machine that looked like a cross between a lawn mower and a Mars Rover.

In one corner, he had set up a type of shrine to his past, his family, his culture, with various memorabilia of his life. On another wall were posters of Pancho Villa and of more recent Chicano heroes, like Corky Gonzalez, and local activist Marco Anguiano. And along part of one of the walls were the books, the notebooks, the 3-ring binders, paper records, the manuscripts, the slides.   [Read more…]

SeaWorld Ends Summertime Fireworks for Now

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SeaWorld has announced its Mission Bay theme park will not shoot off fireworks this summer. Fireworks will still go off during 3-day holiday weekends and a few other special events. Plus, SeaWorld will not disclose whether nightly fireworks are gone for good, only that they are on “hiatus for the foreseeable future.”

The “official story” is that SeaWorld is preparing for its new “Electric Ocean” a nighttime lighting display. In typical fashion, SeaWorld could not admit that maybe – in its effort to be more environmentally-sensitive – that the summertime tradition is halting due to public pressure.   [Read more…]

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