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The 2018 Women’s March is All About Voting and Seeking Office

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By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos

It’s time to get out the pussy hats again. And make sure you pair them with voter registration cards. Last year’s Women’s March, held Jan. 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, drew an estimated 4.2 million protestors in more than 650 marches around the country and even more around the globe. It has been described as the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history. The marches provided an outlet for people across the country to vent dissatisfaction with Trump, to express extreme disappointment in the election results, and to launch a new nationwide movement to energize people (especially women) to take action.

The 2018 marches, scheduled for the weekend of Jan. 20 and 21, might be even bigger.

San Diego Marches:

  • Saturday, Jan. 20, 10 a.m. Women’s March San Diego/Hear Our Vote. County Administration Building. More Info.
  • Saturday, Jan. 20, 10 a.m.  Women’s March North County San Diego. Palomar College (San Marcos) More Info.

  [Read more…]

Why Jeff Sessions’ War on Weed Is a Futile Pursuit

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By Phillip Smith / Alternet

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement Thursday that he is rescinding Obama-era guidance to federal prosecutors directing them to take a laissez-faire approach to state-legal marijuana except under specified circumstances (violence, out-of-state diversion, money laundering, etc.) is sending shock waves through the marijuana industry, but its impact is likely to be limited.

That’s because marijuana prohibition is a dying beast, and while the twitching of its tail in its death throes could cause some injury, neither the attorney general nor his minions are going to be able to get that beast back up and roaring again. They are too late.

At least one of them recognized as much Thursday afternoon. Colorado U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer, a Sessions appointee, said within hours that there would be no changes in his office’s enforcement priorities. He  would continue “identifying and prosecuting those who create the greatest safety threats to our communities around the state,” he said, an approach “consistent with Sessions’ guidance.”
  [Read more…]

The Story of Felix Navidad

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Merry Xmas to all and to all the Good Fight!

by Victor Payan

Not so long ago
And not very far
Lived a jolly young man
With a lowrider car

His name it was Felix
Navidad was his name
And he was known round the world
So great was his fame

He was just a man
Just like you or like me
He couldn’t fly through the air
Or walk on the sea   [Read more…]

Has Rupert Murdoch Finally Crossed the Line?

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By Bill Adams / Urbdezine

Fox News has recently engaged in a coordinated attempt to intimidate and derail the Special Counsel investigation of President Donald Trump.  Fox commentator Judge Jeanine Pirro has gone as far as accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller of attempting a coup d’état and suggesting he and his investigatory team should be taken away in handcuffs.

Rupert Murdoch was born an Australian, the son of a newspaper magnate.  He is the owner of the News Corp., which has massive media holdings, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and the largest cable news company, Fox News.

After Murdoch established himself in news media in his native Australia, he entered the U.K. media market in the late 1960s.  He experienced particular success in tabloid journalism at The Sun.  English tabloid papers are known for their sensationalist exploitation of bigotry and xenophobia.   [Read more…]

How Coca-Cola Invented Christmas As We Know It

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By Valerie Vande Panne / Alternet

The fat old white man clad in red is a marketing gimmick. Let’s consider replacing him. When you see Santa today, all fat and jolly and rosy-cheeked, you’re seeing an image created for and promoted by the Coca-Cola Company for over 80 years. Michigan artist Haddon Sundblom created the Santa Claus we know so well in 1931, for Coke’s “Thirst Knows No Season” campaign.”

Sundblom modeled his Santa on “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” an 1822 poem by Clement C. Moore. While people often point to that poem as the defining element of Santa Claus’ style, or to Thomas Nast’s versions of Santa Claus for Harper’s, it wasn’t until Sundblom and Coke codified the Claus in mass advertising that the world adopted and accepted that version of Santa Claus. Prior to 1931, Santa Claus was depicted all sorts of ways, from an old Diogenes-type man to a bishop to a sprite-like troll.   [Read more…]

Tell The FCC Not To End Net Neutrality!

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By Robert Reich / RobertReich.Org

The FCC is voting Thursday on whether to repeal the “Net Neutrality” rule adopted in 2015.

Since its creation, the internet has been an open exchange of ideas and information, free from corporate control and influence. But corporations could soon have tremendous power over what we can access and share online, ending the internet as we know it.

In 2015, the FCC passed a landmark rule that prevents internet service providers from favoring some sites over others – slowing down connections or charging customers a fee for streaming or other services. It gave Americans equal access to all the content that’s available on the internet – videos, social media, e-commerce sites, etc – at the same speeds.   [Read more…]

Duncan Hunter Vapes While Opponents Organize

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By DWeisman/Escondido Grapevine

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-50th Congressional District) has been a walking horror show for years, and generations if one harkens back to his dad from whom he “inherited” the once-safe Republican congressional seat.

Hunter and his mentor, President Trump, actually have a lot in common. They’re blowhards. They’re caught somewhere between ineffective and impotent. They shill. They lie. They’re under federal investigation and probable indictment.

Every day Trump says and does horrible and disconcerting stuff. Monday, it was Pocahontas slurs in front of Navajo code talkers and a portrait of Indian-killer Andrew Jackson, along with the appointment of a guy who wants to destroy the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as its director.

  [Read more…]

Republican Tax Bill Paves Way for the Destruction of Social Security, Medicare, and Safety Net

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By Joan McCarter / Daily Kos

Take it from a Republican, not just any Republican but a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department in the Bush 41 White House. The fix is in with this Republican tax bill that spikes the deficit.
  [Read more…]

Issa Report: Bogus IRS ‘Scandal’ Ends in a Whimper, Payday Lenders Fund Campaigns

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Reposted from Escondido Grapevine

Republicans claimed the IRS served as an attack dog for the Obama White House. But inquiries by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and the Justice Department all failed to produce evidence of political interference.

Since at least 2014, Issa has been taking in tens of thousands of dollars from the predatory “payday” lenders industry and, in turn, advocated for their interests.   [Read more…]

Trump Administration Internet Scheme Allows Corporations to Throttle Free Speech

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By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

Open internet advocates warned that “we’re running out of time” to save the web from corporate control and called on Americans to make their representatives’ phones “ring off the hook” Tuesday after FCC chairman Ajit Pai unveiled his long-awaited plan to scrap net neutrality that critics slammed as “naked corporatism” designed to give a major gift to the telecom industry at the expense of the public.

“The reckless wrecking ball strikes again,” former FCC commissioner and current special adviser at Common Cause Michael Copps said in a statement. “FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s scorched-earth plan for net neutrality displays callous disregard for both process and substance. The chairman’s plan to do away with net neutrality will be a disaster for consumers and yet another handout for big business.”   [Read more…]

When Will Democrats Stop Being Losers?

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Is it any wonder that more than 1.7 million voters left the top of the ticket blank in 2016?

By John Atcheson / Common Dreams

Much was made of the “blue wave” some saw on November 7th.  Blue ripple is more like it.  Don’t expect those results to translate into a 2018 landslide for Democrats, unless the Party figures out what it’s for, not simply what it’s against.

Most of the Party leaders are only too eager to tell you what an idiot Trump is, or how mean Ryan, McConnell and the rest of the conservative wrecking crew is.  But they are loath to tell you what, exactly, they, themselves stand for.

Oh, yes, you will hear some vaguely progressive platitudes, especially around election time, but in terms of real, specific and substantive stands on behalf of the middle class and poor Americans, there’s more rhetoric than substance.   [Read more…]

The Deadly Link Between Domestic Violence and Mass Shootings

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By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos

The fight for rational gun safety laws is frustrating. But the information that the perpetrator of the latest mass shooting also was guilty of domestic abuse—a conviction that should have kept him from buying a gun—seems to be opening some eyes.

Devin Patrick Kelley, who opened fire with an assault rifle to kill 26 people at a church service in Sutherland Springs, Texas, had been court-martialed for trying to strangle his wife and for fracturing his stepson’s skull. Kelley is just the latest in a series of mass shooters who also have committed domestic violence. Of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history, nine were committed by domestic abusers.

According to research by Everytown for Gun Safety, which has analyzed all mass shootings since 2009, more than half of all mass shootings in the United States are related to domestic or family violence.   [Read more…]

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