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Sweetwater Authority’s $49,083,000 Water Rate Increase! (The Impact on the Poor)

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By Herman Baca / President, Committee on Chicano Rights

There are many things that individuals in the community can do without; water is not one of them. Poor people, especially in National City (NC), the poorest in SD County, median income of $39,000, and others on fixed income in the South Bay could find themselves if the increase is approved choosing to pay their water bill, over lives’ other necessities…food, rent, clothing, etc..

The Sweetwater Authority serves 187,000 customers in Bonita, parts of Chula Vista and NC. A public hearing to “consider adopting increases to its water service fees” will be held on August 27, 2012. In the last seven years the Sweetwater Authority has approved rate increases 6 times, but failed to raise rates in 2011, because of outraged Bonita residents. The CCR has gone on record in opposing the proposed water rate increase.

Most San Diego County residents, voters and water customers have little, if any idea that 16 water agencies even exist, what they do, or that they have become private fiefdoms, private ATMs and cash cows for self-serving individuals and politicians.   [Read more…]

Duffy Hoax Revealed – Medical Marijuana Advocates Tell All

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By Eugene Davidovitch / Americans for Safe Access

BACKGROUND: On October 7, 2011, at a press conference in Sacramento, US Attorney Laura Duffy, along with several other US Attorneys, announced a statewide crackdown on medical cannabis cooperatives, collectives, gardens, and others.

Without citing any specific violations in state law, Duffy’s office claimed all were out of compliance and would be targeted for eradication including those fully licensed and regulated by local government and law enforcement.

Since this proclamation of war on California’s medical marijuana program, Duffy’s office sent hundreds of letters to landlords threatening asset forfeiture if they did not immediately evict their dispensary tenants. As a result of these backhanded tactics, many landlords were forced to comply. Within six months, Duffy closed over 200 dispensaries in San Diego alone.

These closures forced thousands of employees into unemployment, left hundreds of properties vacant and most importantly, left the 70,000 plus medical marijuana patients in San Diego county wondering where to get their medicine.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Veterans Group to Start Weekly Vigil on Domestic Predator Drone Use Outside General Atomics Poway Location

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Say ‘no’ to Predators overhead… Tomorrow, Thursday, August 16th, San Diego Veterans for Peace will begin a weekly vigil at the General Atomics plant in Poway, where the Predator Drone is built. The goal of this series of demonstrations is to get people thinking about the threat drones present to American liberties.  Congress has passed legislation mandating that the Federal Aviation Administration create a comprehensive program for the integration of drone technology into the national air space by 2015. The agency is predicting that there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020.

San Diego Veterans for Peace is concerned that the melding of law enforcement with Homeland Security is producing the basis for a big brother state. Certainly there has been little to no public discourse about the implications of the ability of local law enforcement agencies sending drones to look in our back yards or bedroom windows, streaming the video to people unknown, without our permission. What could be a powerful tool for crime fighting could easily become an easily abused loophole that negates the Fourth Amendment. Sadly, the track record of law enforcement agencies utilizing technologies developed for combat use in domestic situations is very poor.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Escondido Denies Permit for Voter Registration Drive on National Voter Registration Day

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Here’s an example of too much government... San Diego’s ACLU chapter is challenging an Escondido ordinance that requires citizens to give the City two months advance notice in order to receive a permit for a special event. The group became aware of problems with the North County city’s permitting policies when they applied for a permit to hold voter registration and get-out-the-vote event at the Grape Day Park on September 25, 2012, to coincide with National Voter Registration Day. A city staff member told the San Diego ACLU that the event would require at least 60 days advance notice, and declined to accept the application.

A press release issued by the ACLU asserts that “Escondido’s ordinance represents an illegal prior restraint, pitting the public’s right to protected expression against the government’s power to approve or disapprove an application. On a number of fronts, the city’s current ordinance violates First Amendment protections…” The group is currently negotiating with the Escondido city attorney’s office, but indicates that litigation remains an option if necessary.   [Read more…]

Field of View: San Diego Free Press Meet-and-Greet

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More than 30 people attended the San Diego Free Press meet-and-greet held Sunday in Lemon Grove. Presentations on the history of the internet, how to write a blog post and the original SDFP were given before opening up the floor to general introductions and collaboration. Food and drinks were shared as well as ideas about how those in attendance could best contribute to the SDFP.

Papa Doug, if your ears were burning yesterday, this was why.

All photos by Annie Lane.   [Read more…]

From Petrolia with Love: Alexander Cockburn RIP

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Progressive media is only worth a damn when it has the courage to think bad thoughts and consistently afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

I learned of Alex Cockburn’s death when I picked up a copy of the North Coast Journal in a gas station minimart in Eureka. My family and I were in transit between the deep woods near the California-Oregon border and our next destination off the Lost Coast Highway when we stopped to fuel up and get snacks. While I stood waiting for my son to finish buying a candy bar I picked up the paper and randomly flipped it open to an article entitled “Cockburn Country” in which Marcy Burstiner chastised the local daily, the Times Standard, for failing to adequately comment on Cockburn’s demise.

To rectify this omission Burstiner details how Cockburn had been living in Petrolia for two decades where he co-edited the left online journal and publishing outlet CounterPunch, continued to pen his column for The Nation, and published many books challenging the sacred cows of American Empire and skewering the pieties of the right and left alike. Burstiner tells the story of Cockburn giving a speech in 2009 to “a rag tag bunch of nobodies” in the rain inEureka with incredible passion and energy despite the circumstances. She then ends her tribute by musing, “Alexander Cockburn, if your spirit hovers over me at some rainy Eureka rally in the future, know that one of your fellow residents appreciated you for being a thinker in a world where most people avoid thinking, for calling out the bullshit you saw in the world around you, for exasperating people around you of all political stripes and for being part of our little world out here.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — A Much Grander Vision for San Diego; Public Market Project Underway

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At no cost to taxpayers!… Unlike other visions for San Diego (a football stadium and Convention Center expansion come to mind), Dale Steele and Catt White are making their plans for a City Public Market along the lines of Seattle’s Pike’s Place, San Francisco’s Ferry Building and Barcelona’s La Boqueria into a reality via crowd source funding on the internet’s KickStarter. As of July 2012, KickStarter has 4,048 projects funded and has raised a total of $241 million in start-up capital.

Both Steele and White are long time players on the San Diego market scene; White currently manages neighborhood farmers’ markets in Little Italy, North Park and Pacific Beach. They have already leased a 92,000 square foot property near Petco Park and are renovating more than two acres of warehouse space. Plans for the market include two days a week with farmers’ stalls, booths with local crafters and artists, music festivals, movie nights and quinceañeras, chef’s tasting events and art exhibits, along with the occasional Chaldean Festival, Chinese New Year’s parade, Filipino fiesta or charity fundraiser.   [Read more…]

Pussy Riot Band Members Push the Limit of Russian Dissent

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St. Maria, Virgin, Drive away Putin
Drive away! Drive away Putin! Pussy Riot

Three members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot have been in custody since February and face a possible prison sentence of up to seven years. They are charged with “hooliganism on the grounds of religious hatred” for singing their punk prayer “Mother of God- Drive Away Putin” in Moscow’s main Orthodox church.

  [Read more…]

Mr. President : Legalize Marijuana and You’ll Get the Youth Vote and Win the Election.

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A Majority of Americans Support Legalization of Marijuana Now for the First Time

This is an Open Letter to President Barack Obama Calling on him to legalize marijuana.

If you legalize marijuana, Mr. President, you’ll get the youth vote and win the 2012 Presidential election. It’s as simple as that. However you do it, Mr. President, if you legalize cannabis, you’ll then do for the young of this country what you did for the Mexican-American and Latino populations, and then what you did for the gay and lesbian communities earlier this year.

How is this so?

It just so happens, that here in the midst of campaign 2012, the issue of marijuana legalization and the status of medical cannabis have perhaps paradoxically both become highly charged topics. Legalization initiatives are on three state ballots, there’s a whole array of other reform measures up for vote, and there’s polls that show a majority of Americans support straight-out legalization of pot – all that makes this year 2012 an historic year for marijuana reform.
  [Read more…]

ACLU Sends Warning to US Attorney Duffy: “Stop the Threats” of Del Mar City Workers

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By Marcus Boyd/ Americans for Safe Access / August 6, 2012

San Diego, CA – In an ever increasing waste of federal funds to circumvent state medical marijuana laws, last month US Attorney Laura Duffy fired off this threatening letter to City of Del Mar employees. In response late last week the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLU) posted an article on their blog titled; “U.S. Attorney Shouldn’t Be Threatening to Prosecute City Employees” and fired fired this letter back to the US Attorney.

On their blog, the ACLU writes:

“The San Diego U.S. Attorney is treading dangerous legal ground with a legal opinion that seems to be threatening Del Mar city employees with prosecution if they comply with an ordinance on medical marijuana up for a vote in November.”

Duffy’s intensified war against the civil liberties of sick and dying patients caught the attention of ACLU Legal Director, David Loy, after the director received an email blast and supporting materials from San Diego ASA detailing Duffy’s attempts to threaten lawmakers with federal prosecution for adopting ordinances that regulate dispensaries.   [Read more…]

Reader Rant: The Chicken and the Cross

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Editors Note: Sometimes we get letters from readers that we think deserve a life of their own. So we publish them as ‘Reader Rants’. Send us your thoughts, and if we like them, we’ll run them. Be warned – the selection process is totally subjective.

The century of hate began with the prosecution of Oscar Wilde on account of his homosexual relations. No matter how brilliant or entertaining the writer who loved women but felt attracted to men, Wilde would be sentenced to prison. His homosexuality did not bother him, but the persecution destroyed him.

The hounding of gays continues to this day.

For some reason the treatment became greatly amplified during WWII.   [Read more…]

Why a Major Food Organization Is Teaming Up With Monsanto and Friends to Block Your Right to Know What’s in Your Food

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Big Food companies like ConAgra, Smucker, Hormel, Kellogg, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo want to block Proposition 37

[The California Ballot Initiative to label genetically engineered food is] “a serious, long-term threat to the viability of agricultural biotechnology. Defeating the Initiative is GMA’s single highest priority this year.”  — Pamela Bailey, President of Grocery Manufacturers Association, speech to the American Soybean Association, July 9, 2012

This November, Californians will vote for or against Prop 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act. The outcome of that vote will likely determine whether the U.S. will one day join the nearly 50 other countries that allow their citizens to choose between genetically engineered and non-genetically engineered food through the enactment of laws requiring mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

  [Read more…]

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