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Protest Journal: Trump’s San Diego Visit

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There were to be no groups exercising their free speech in the “Free Speech Zone” on the occasion of President Donald Trump’s border wall prototypes inspection tour.  Organizers took a look at what was being offered by the San Diego County Sheriffs and said “no thanks.”

Both anti-Trump/Border Wall protests scheduled near the site of the prototypes in Otay Mesa during President Trump’s visit relocated themselves to San Ysidro late on Monday.

***This post will be updated throughout the day***   [Read more…]

UPDATED: What’s Happening During Trump’s San Diego Visit

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The President of the United States is coming to one the safest cities in the United States to complain about crime and immigration. No doubt he’ll echo this weekend’s Saturday address expressing his unhappiness with California’s defiant stance on cooperation with federal authorities:

“California’s leaders are in open defiance of federal law,” Mr. Trump said. “They don’t care about crime. They don’t care about death and killings. They don’t care about robberies. They don’t care about the kind of things that you and I care about.”

President Donald Trump will fly into Miramar Marine Corps Air Station on Tuesday morning, sometime between 9 and 11am. He’ll make a late morning/mid-day appearance at the site of the Border Wall prototypes in Otay Mesa, returning to Miramar to make a speech before TV cameras at 2pm.

NOTE: Both protest events originally scheduled for Otay Mesa have moved to San Ysidro due to safety concerns.   [Read more…]

An FAA FOIA Request Update: 218 Days and Counting and No End in Sight

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Foolishly believing that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) makes timely decisions, a friend and I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FAA on July 29, 2017. Why? To gather info to comment on the County of San Diego 2018 McClellan-Palomar Master Plan.

We asked for the records showing what the FAA knew about the County of San Diego opening three landfills on McClellan-Palomar Airport for a 14-yeard period in the 1960s and 1970s.

Why this request? Because the County of San Diego has received more than $30 million in FAA funds and agreed to FAA grant conditions. And the County now wants at least $70 million more to extend and relocate its Palomar runway 800-feet. One FAA grant condition says: Don’t use airport property for non-airport purposes.

We also asked for an FOIA fee waiver. The feds charge for records unless an FOIA fee exemption applies. Two exemptions should apply. Reporters with a demonstrated history of informing the public of community issues qualify for an exemption. FOIA fee waivers also apply when records are requested that further a significant public interest.

One week after our request, the FAA West Coast FOIA office denied it. On August 3, 2017, we filed our appeal with the FAA in Washington, D.C. As of March 9, 2018, the FAA official position is: We’re still reviewing the issues.   [Read more…]

Progressive Groups Hope to Fund Digital Billboard at Border Crossing for Trump Visit

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If protests aren’t your thing, there’s now another way for San Diegans to express their opposition to Trump.

As I’m writing this post on Saturday morning, there are a half-dozen protests, press conferences, and rallies announced in anticipation of a Presidental visit to San Diego for the purpose of inspecting prototypes of a border barrier erected in Otay Mesa. Additional responses are being organized for an expected stop later in the day by Trump at a GOP fundraiser in Beverley Hills.

Fourteen organizations in the San Diego have joined forces to fundraise for a digital billboard aimed at countering the pro-Border Wall message Donald Trump is expected to deliver on Tuesday, March 13. The 10 X 20 Digitron billboard at the San Ysidro border crossing, will be visible to those crossing the border from Tijuana. It is expected the message will garner up to 150,000 daily views during the average 100-minute border wait, running for 20 seconds every hour, 24 hours a day for 28 days.   [Read more…]

Black Women, Anti-Trump, & Student Protests! Progressive Activist Calendar March 9-19, 2018

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This is likely to be a historic week for activism in San Diego. Black Women will march to build power and community on Saturday, Anti-Trump Protests will span Monday & Tuesday, and students from five colleges, along with 29 elementary thru high schools will walk out for 17 minutes on Wednesday to protest gun violence.

Plus! There are thirty-two other opportunities to educate, organize, demonstrate, and engage with progressives throughout the region. Whether it’s electoral politics, teach-ins, grass root community activism on neighborhood issues, there’s something to do.

I’ll maintain and update a page about anti-Trump demonstrations here. Email me dougporter@sandiegofreepress.org or tag me on Facebook if you have information that needs to be added. Oh, and the County of San Diego is kinda freaking out about demonstrations near the border; learn about those restrictions here.   [Read more…]

County Announces Restrictions for Border Protests During Trump’s Visit

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The County of San Diego has announced Temporary Area Restrictions in the area near the Border Wall prototypes effective March 9 -16.  Via the Times of San Diego, here’s their release directed at people planning to demonstrate during Trump’s visit.

It has been widely advertised that there will be a Presidential visit to San Diego during the second week of March. This visit may prompt individuals and groups with contrasting opinions to gather in the area near the Border Wall Prototype Construction in Otay Mesa.

In preparation for demonstrations and in an effort to protect the rights of citizens to peacefully protest, the Sheriff has requested and been granted Temporary Area Restrictions by the San Diego County Assistant Chief Administrative Officer. Anyone found to be in violation of these Temporary Area Restrictions will be prosecuted pursuant to County Regulatory Code sections 32.1501 and 11.116.   [Read more…]

UPDATED: Trump’s Visiting San Diego on Tuesday: How Will Activists Respond?

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UPDATED as of 3/11

Monday–

Rally and Press Conference —  Monday, March 12 at 11 am, Chicano Park, Participants include Alliance San Diego, American Friends Service Committee, San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium, Southern Border Communities Coalition, Interfaith Justice Coalition, Unite Here Local 30, Union del Barrio, City Councilmember Georgette Gomez (D-9)

Fuera Donald Trump — Monday, March 12 at 5pm, Edward J Schwartz Federal Building, 880 Front Street, For More Information, Hosted by Unión del Barrio

Tuesday–

Tuesday–

NOTE: Both protests scheduled for Otay Mesa have been moved to San Ysidro due to safety concerns. This listing is accurate as of 7:20am Tuesday.

Protest Trump at San Ysidro Border
9:30 – 11:30am
Corner of Virginia Ave and Camino de La Plaza  San Ysidro
 For More Information
Being Organized by Nuevo Movimento and San Diego Protests

We are meeting at the San Ysidro border crossing and welcoming our Mexican brothers and Sisters into the United States. We are meeting at the corner of Virginia Ave and Camino de La Plaza. We will have a couple of speakers and open Mic for our community members. We hope to see you all there. Afterward feel free to stop by at the Women’s March and Clergy event located at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church
2020 Alaquinas Drive
San Ysidro, CA 92173.

Please show up in masses and support us! Park at Las Americas mall outlet, plenty of free parking there. The rally will be at the corner of Camino de la Plaza and Virginia Ave.

Press Conference and Rally:
Interfaith Leaders and Elected Officials to Urge Trump
to Build Bridges Not Walls in San Diego Visit
Tuesday, March 13 at Noon, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, 2020 Alaquinas Drive, San Ysidro. Hosted by San Diego Organizing Project.

Women’s March San Diego issued the following statement late on Monday
After gathering information and many considerations, Women’s March San Diego has decided to join forces with many community organizations and rally (see above) at the following location near the border:
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church,  2020 Alaquinas Drive, San Ysidro, CA 92173
Rally and Press Conference: Stand with Immigrant Families’
Hosted by San Diego Organizing Project
Speeches begin at NOON!
WOMEN’S MARCH SAN DIEGO WILL ARRIVE AT 11:30 TO VOICE OUR OPPOSITION TO THE WALL AND THIS VISIT!
For More Information, Hosted by Women’s March San Diego   
Taxpayers Resist Trump’s Wall – Tuesday, March 3, 9:30am, Corner of F St and Front St (on lawn behind IRS Building), For More Information, Hosted by Indivisible San Diego

San Diego Undocuyouth RESIST Trump— Tuesday, March 13, 5:30pm, Waterfront Park – County Administration Building, 1600 Pacific Highway, For More Information, Hosted by The Seed Project
  [Read more…]

Attorney General Sessions Swoops into Sacramento to Denounce ‘Lawless Open Borders Radicals’

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to Sacramento for a media moment Wednesday morning, hoping to stoke support for a lawsuit destined for the Supreme Court aimed at overturning over state laws protecting immigrants.

He got a cool reception –polite applause– from what the Trump administration hoped would be a receptive audience, a meeting of the California Peace Officers Association at the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel.

Continuing the Trump administration’s assault on the truth, Sessions compared the sanctuary movement in California to secessionist and racist defiance in the South during the civil rights era.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: San Diego Legislators Lead the State on Environmental Justice

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Ana Reynoso / Environmental Health Coalition

San Diego, often celebrated as a green city, is home to neighborhoods overburdened with toxic pollution, disproportionately high rates of asthma, limited affordable housing, and a failing transit system. In October 2017, with the leadership of Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, San Diego moved closer to rectifying these injustices.

I first experienced urban inequities and environmental injustice growing up in a low-income household in upstate New York. My hometown, Albany, is a historically disinvested city. The transportation of fracked oil exposes communities along its path to major risks of derailment, oil spills, and explosions. My single mother worked long hours to feed my brother and I. For years, we depended on donations of unhealthy food from church pantries. Back then, I did not have the language to describe that my city’s food desert and crumbling infrastructure restricted our access to healthy food and an effective and affordable transportation. As I got older, I learned policy and organizing could change these circumstances.   [Read more…]

The Time Has Come to End Old-Growth Logging in our National Forests

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By Peter Brownell / Medium

A year ago today, my grandfather, Chuck Johnstone, passed away after spending most of his 93 years in Alaska. He was quintessentially Alaskan, doing the hard jobs that needed doing: he dropped out of high school to work in a gold mine. He served in the Navy during WWII. He served as dogcatcher, police chief, and deputy US Marshal. He worked as a logger and in a pulp mill. He worked in construction. He was the captain of a pilot boat.

He (and my grandmother Alice) also made it their lives’ work to protect some of Alaska’s most beautiful and ecologically significant places. They lived in Sitka, a small coastal fishing town nestled in the heart of the Tongass National Forest, a 17 million acre tract of public land that is home to ancient spruce, cedar, and hemlock trees, brown bears, humpback whales, bald eagles, and all five species of Pacific wild salmon.

Although it was not always a popular position to take in a small town where the pulp mill was the largest employer, my grandparents were founding members of the Sitka Conservation Society (SCS). Together with friends and neighbors, they persuaded Congress to designate the West Chichagof-Yakobi Wilderness Area within the Tongass National Forest, protecting that area of the region’s unique temperate rainforest from logging, and preserving spawning streams that serve as nurseries for the wild salmon that are the basis of Alaska’s multi-billion dollar commercial and sport fishing industries. In 2010, my grandparents accepted the US Forest Service’s Bob Marshall Award for Champions of Wilderness on behalf of SCS.   [Read more…]

New Generation Joins Barrio Logan’s Long Fight | Video Worth Watching

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Here’s a vision for the future; a video by Adriana Heldiz for the Voice of San Diego introduces us to four individuals engaged in their Barrio Logan community and shaping its development.

Some readers may recognize the last person featured, Joaquín Junco, as a San Diego Free Press contributor. While a Southwestern College student, he provided many cartoons and illustrations for the San Diego Free Press as Junco Canché.   [Read more…]

West Virginia Teachers Show Why Unions Matter | Women’s History Month

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It is illegal for public employees to strike in the state of West Virginia. The teachers have gone all-in anyway, and are currently in the eighth day of a wildcat strike that encompasses all of West Virginia’s fifty-five counties. The state’s legislators have rejected the agreement that Governor Jim Justice presented last week that would have returned students to their classrooms. It doesn’t appear that the strike will end any time soon. Nor will the striking teachers’ commitment to providing food to the one in five students who live in poverty in their districts end soon either.

Teacher salaries in the state rank forty-eighth in the US. One teacher noted that a manager at a fast food restaurant close to her school makes more money than she does. According to recent data from the Department of Education, “teachers tend to be white, female, and have nearly a decade and a half of experience in the classroom.”

Once again we see a female dominated profession pushed into penury while at the same time reaching into their own limited resources to continue helping their students.   [Read more…]

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