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Opposing Trump’s “Moral Chaos,” People’s Budget Offers Roadmap for Resistance

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“It’s one thing to oppose President Trump and expose his broken promises to workers, but it’s also important to lay out a positive path forward”

By Deidre Fulton / Common Dreams

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) on Tuesday unveiled its “People’s Budget,” offering a vision of economic equality and fairness that comes in sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s “slash-and-burn approach to governing based on ideological extremism.”

The People’s Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance (pdf) includes a $2 trillion infrastructure investment; closes corporate tax loopholes; ensures families don’t pay more than 10 percent of their income for childcare; and supports progressive measures such as a minimum wage increase, clean energy expansion, and debt-free college. Bottom line, the caucus said Tuesday, the document “puts political and economic power back in the hands of the people.”   [Read more…]

Sessions Wrongly Says Sanctuary Jurisdictions Have Put Gang Members Back On Streets

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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions tags Escondido wrongly for immigrant crimes

By Special to the Grapevine / The Escondido Grapevine

Escondido last week entered the national dialogue over immigrant rights and Donald Trump’s big, bad border wall, but in an unexpected, and counterfactual way.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions highlighted Escondido to illustrate how jurisdictions that limit cooperation with immigration authorities jeopardize public safety.

The only problem was Sessions got everything wrong.   [Read more…]

Public Right of Way Enhancement Program: Hindering OB Businesses?

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Clothes Racks Not Allowed Outside Newport Avenue Storefronts

By South OB Girl / OB Rag

For many years there have been racks of clothing for sale outside the shops on Newport Avenue. I have memories of outdoor racks at Lola Luna, Miss Match, The Closet, Wahines, Dream Girls, Temptress, $2 Thrill, OB Surf & Skate, Wings, the souvenir shops, and the shell shop.

I recently learned that these racks of clothes outside stores are not allowed in the Public Right of Way (PROW). Shops can purchase a permit for $45 from the OB MainStreet Association to be able to use a designated area of sidewalk (for a distance of no more than 4′-0″ from the property line) in front of their stores as part of the PROW Enhancement Program. The PROW cannot be used for clothes racks but can be used for other things.   [Read more…]

Tweets of the Master Class: Ten Dollars Extra For Every Hundred Lashes

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Trump’s Revisionist History on Andrew Jackson

By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

“Stop the Runaway” begins an 1804 ad placed in the Tennessee Gazette urging civic-minded souls to capture a “Mulatto Man Slave” escaped from one Andrew Jackson, “unrepentant” owner of 161 slaves, soon-to-be 7th president, and role model for our dizzyingly ignorant 45th, who with rabid encouragement from Bannon likes to glowingly compare himself to the prosperous slave trader and infamous Indian killer who precipitated the Cherokees’ Trail of Tears.

The latest summoning of his bestie’s racist ghost came in an interview with the Washington Examiner in which “the most fact-challenged president ever” stunningly suggested Jackson was “really angry that he saw what was happening, with regard to the Civil War” and might have stopped it even though he’d been dead 16 years. After babbling, “People don’t realize, the Civil War – you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question” – though to date over 30 million people have Googled that very question – Trump blankly asked, “But why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”

So many facepalms, so little time.   [Read more…]

Donald Trump Wants To Roll Back Two Decades of National Monuments

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

Donald Trump’s next executive order could be monumental—and not in a good way. In the spirit of patriotic occupiers of wildlife habitat who don’t believe any place is so beautiful, historic, or ecologically significant that it couldn’t be improved by a Walmart and/or a strip mine, Trump wants to do in a few national monuments. And this time he’s not just stopping with rolling back Barack Obama.

That’s every monument named under Obama, every monument named under George W. Bush, and several named by Bill Clinton. That’s the islets of the California coast, the groves of Giant Sequoia, and over 6,000 archaeological sites at Canyon of the Ancients.   [Read more…]

Santee Moves Forward on Climate Action Plan

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By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine

Santee’s City Council took a step toward establishing a “Sustainable Santee” climate action plan, but only under pressure from the state to do so.

By a 4-1 vote on April 12, with Mayor John Minto opposed, the Council voted to hire LSA Associates to complete the city’s climate action plan and an environmental impact report, as required by California law. Council authorized paying up to $133,000 to the consulting company.   [Read more…]

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: A Story about Extremism and Complacency

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By Doctor RJ / Daily Kos

I am a man. I state this because my perspective on what it means to be a woman within our society is limited in some ways. However, from the outside looking in, it’s been my observation that most women are forced to walk a very narrow balance when it comes to public perceptions, which is fundamentally unfair and contributes to some of the glass ceilings.

For example, in almost all respects of life, confidence and strength are character traits people respond to—whether it’s a leader outlining a plan of action, or someone trying to sell their attraction in order to get a date. But for women, show too much strength and get called a bitch, or act too nice and be regarded as weak.   [Read more…]

From Ocean Beach to Santa Barbara: 4 Day Journey on a Bike to Heaven

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By Dave Milligan / OB Rag

Our bikes are quiet, well-tuned, and we slip through the sleepy streets of Ocean Beach, carefully peering around each corner we cross, blowing through stop signs, not wanting to slow our progress north. I am push the steel, horseless-horse that I ride north. This is the start of an adventure that has sat in the back attic of my mind for fifty years. Vacationing as a teenager in Santa Barbara I daydreamed about doing this trip by bicycle; but there were obstacles: Camp Pendleton, what to eat, where to sleep, unfriendly roads, and of course, Mom. I now have a card that gives me entry to the Marines’ camp, another card that buys me all the food and lodging necessary, maps and a phone that can guide me, and, most importantly, the blessing of my wife (AKA: a kitchen pass). This ride is the fulfillment of a boyhood dream, my teenage self is ecstatic.   [Read more…]

Collapse: Against ‘Fierce Democratic Opposition’ Trump Surrenders on Funding for His Wall

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

Donald Trump still insists that Mexico is going to pay for the border wall. Except Mexico stubbornly refuses to send an up-front check for something that would cost as much as their national budget, is designed to wreck their economy, and is basically the world’s biggest and “most beautiful” screw-you. So until Trump figures out exactly how to get Mexico to shell out for a giant slap in the face, there’s the problem of finding that money in your pocket.

Last week Trump budget director, and chief torturer of both reason and common decency, Mick Mulvaney, proposed that Trump might let slip a dollar worth of health care for every dollar that Democrats provided for hate concrete. Mulvaney insisted that the Wall was a must-have, take-it-or-leave-it item, but his healthcare for hardware exchange was not exactly a deal anyone rushed to embrace.

As it turns out, there was no need to, because faced with the idea of hitting a government shutdown on Day 99 of his regime, Donald Trump appears ready to fold like a gaudy gold napkin in the Mar-a-lago dining and strategic planning room.   [Read more…]

Attention, Please: We Can Guarantee Healthcare for All Californians

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By Deborah Burger / Common Dreams

With continued uncertainty in Washington over the fate of the Affordable Care Act, California has a unique role to play in charting a new path on health care reform – legislation that would guarantee coverage for all Californians, at much lower cost.

SB 562, the Healthy California Act, introduced by state Senators Ricardo Lara and Toni Atkins, with the California Nurses Association as lead proponent, will receive its first legislative hearing Wednesday, April 26 before the Senate Health Committee.

Excitement over the proposed law is already escalating around the state. Scores of nurses and healthcare activists have held multiple town halls, rallies, marches, and engaged in conventional lobbying including neighborhood canvassing and calls to legislators.   [Read more…]

The YUGE Job Losses Trump Is Ignoring: Retail Workers

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By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos

This is not a good time to have a job in the retail industry.

If you’ve been to a shopping mall recently, you may have noticed that many storefronts are empty. Stores that are still open aren’t crowded, and there are plenty of spaces in the parking lot.

About one in every 10 American workers works in the retail industry, and one out of every three retail employees works part-time. A retail job is the first job experience for about one-third of Americans, so cutbacks block entry into the job market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 15.9 million people worked in the U.S. retail industry in January 2017, but that number has been shrinking. Since October 2016, 89,000 retail workers have lost their jobs. The most recent BLS jobs report in early April showed that 30,000 retail workers lost jobs in March—about equal to the number of retail jobs lost in February. The March decrease alone was enough to lower the job growth numbers to just 98,000. The two-month job loss was the worst retail job loss since the Great Recession in 2009.   [Read more…]

Media Covers Sessions’ Racism But Not The Protests Against It. Why?

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By Jenn Budd / Crooks and Liars

Attorney General Jeff Sessions escaped his elfin tree this past week to spew a stream of offensive, racist comments aimed at our border communities. While the lazy mainstream media covered every marble-mouthed utterance of the Disgrace of Alabama, I chose to go down to the border in my hometown of San Diego and see what Americans thought of all this race baiting. Oddly enough, they didn’t agree with El Elfo.

For those of you who have never been to San Diego, or any other border town for that matter, you should know that we consider the border and our neighbors to the south to be a part of our community. We’ve lived with each other for centuries. We party, pray and mourn together. We have family and friends on both sides. What happens south of the border, directly affects the north side and vise versa. So when Sessions had the nerve to visit border communities and call them “war zones” and filled with “violent gangs, drug dealers and murders,” members of those communities decided to fight back.   [Read more…]

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