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Deported Veterans Battle to Come Home

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By Edward Sifuentes / ACLU San Diego

In 1983, U.S. Marine Armando Scott was stationed in Beirut, Lebanon, when suicide bombers detonated two truck bombs that destroyed the barracks housing his unit. More than 300 people died in the attack, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers.

Scott survived the terrorist attack and helped pull the bodies out of the rubble.

Unfortunately, Scott, who was born in Panama, is now living in Tijuana. He is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of U.S. military veterans who have been deported from the country they once served with honor and distinction.
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Plastic Ocean Pollution a Driver of Climate Change?

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Though burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming, fossil fuels could also be driving climate change via a completely different mechanism involving ocean plastic debris and tiny, bioluminescent fish living hundreds of meters beneath the ocean’s surface.

Lanternfish (aka myctophids) are only a few inches long typically, but so ubiquitous that they account for over half the ocean’s total fish-mass. They are vital to the ocean’s ability to sequester more carbon than all the world’s forests do on land through a daily mass migration playing out in all seven seas.   [Read more…]

A Possible Silver-Lining to Puerto Rico’s Electrical Grid Reconstruction? | Video Worth Watching

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Could the need to rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid provide the opportunity to construct a community controlled sustainable infrastructure? Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman spoke to Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, the head of UTIER, the electrical workers’ union in Puerto Rico, about Elon Musk’s proposal to make Puerto Rico the model of sustainable energy. She also visited the Casa Sol Bed and Breakfast in San Juan, which runs entirely on solar power and was able to provide electricity and drinking water to neighbors in advance of the city’s restoration of power.   [Read more…]

Issa Spooked by Halloween Rally; #TrumpTaxScam Resistance Growing

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Congressman Darrell Issa got an early birthday present yesterday–he’s 64 today–from local activists, as more than six hundred people gathered outside his Vista office.

They were joined by Tom Steyer, in the news lately for shelling out $10 million to run TV ads calling for the impeachment of the president. This week’s rally, coming just one day after the Special Counsel’s first round of indictments, was Halloween-themed. The central premise was “we want a hero.”

In the coming weeks, protests at Issa’s office and around the country will shift the focus to the Republican tax plan, which they have yet to finish writing. Tax cuts for corporations and wealthy people are all set in stone; questions remain about who will be punished to pay for them.   [Read more…]

My Day Inside an Immigrant Detention Center

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The women are brown and black. They wear navy blue scrubs. Most have navy-colored canvass shoes on, but some wear bright orange plastic shower sandals. They’re in their 20s and 30s, except for a few with long grey hair. They are neat and clean. A few wear white plastic rosaries around their necks.

The facility is a two-hour drive east of San Diego on Interstate 8. It’s in the Calexico desert. There are no trees or green for as far as the eye can see — just lots of grey rock and brown earth. Metal fencing topped with barbed wire surrounds the building. The parking lot is mostly empty. The sun burns the sidewalk and the few cacti that dare to dot the landscape.

Inside it’s clean and tidy. There is no smell. There is no noise.   [Read more…]

What San Diego Needs to Do If Trump Fires Mueller

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I’m reposting this item, written near the end of July, in case El Presidente decides to pull a Nixonian move on the American people. It’s kind of amazing how little has changed… dp

The President and his defenders have been actively seeking a way to disrupt Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into allegations of illegal activities surrounding the 2016 general election.

While the ultimate response to an irrational decision to fire Robert Mueller should come from the other branches of government, a sense of urgency based on a strong showing of public disapproval is absolutely necessary.

Activists with MoveOn, Public Citizen, and Indivisible San Diego (among others) are laying the groundwork for local responses to actions the President may take along these lines.   [Read more…]

Climate Change Lawsuits and Coastal Plans — Where Does San Diego Stand?

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San Francisco, Oakland, San Mateo, Marin and Imperial Beach are suing fossil fuel companies over the sea level rise and expected property damages to homes and businesses. The claims cite increased cost of infrastructure, emergency response, coastal flooding and extreme storms. Danger to health and the obstruction of free use of property and free passage of waterways and parks is included.

Does San Diego have a plan to secure the funds needed to respond to climate change? Other jurisdictions have filed climate change lawsuits against fossil fuel companies to secure such funds.

During a telephone conversation with Mayor Dedina of Imperial Beach, I asked if San Diego should join in filing a climate change lawsuit against fossil fuel companies. He responded:

“San Diego is not in a position to do so because the preliminary work of climate change impact projections and cost estimates has not been done. San Diego would first need to develop a local coastal plan like Imperial Beach and others have done before filing for the lawsuit to be credible.”

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Here’s How San Diego Can Help Puerto Rico

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Information provided by the USD Toreros

The men’s basketball programs at the University of San Diego and Arizona State University will team up for a charity exhibition game on Wednesday, Nov. 1, to raise money for Hurricane Maria victims in Puerto Rico. The game between the Toreros and Sun Devils will take place at 7 p.m. in USD’s Jenny Craig Pavilion.

The University of San Diego and Arizona State University together requested and received a waiver from the NCAA to play the extra exhibition game with the sole purpose to benefit hurricane victims in Puerto Rico.

Tickets for the exhibition game between the Toreros and Sun Devils are $10 for general admission and $5 for children and USD students. Tickets can be purchased online or on game day at the Jenny Craig Pavilion ticket window. All money collected through ticket sales will be donated to Catholic Charities, USA, for Hurricane Maria relief.   [Read more…]

National Weather Service Puerto Rican Video – Wind Turbines With Blades Snapped Off, Solar Panel Debris Strewn Across Fields | Video Worth Watching

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On Tuesday the National Weather Service posted a video documenting Hurricane Maria damage. Among the scenes of collapsed highways, buildings reduced to rubble and power poles strewn like matchsticks, were views of wind turbines with their blades snapped off and solar farms with shards of demolished panels strewn over the fields. One aspect helping to mitigate the despair engendered by these scenes is Kevin MacLeod’s “Mesmerize” as the soundtrack.   [Read more…]

Make It Fair: Close a Prop 13 Corporate Loophole and Dull Trump’s Budget Ax for Californians

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November 1, 2017, will be an important day for San Diegans concerned about what the future of California looks like.  

Republicans in Washington DC are scheduled to release the paperwork outlining the #TrumpTaxScam on November 1st. Congressman Paul Ryan told a press conference on Tuesday the House is on track to get a “tax overhaul bill” to the Senate before Thanksgiving.

On November 1st there will be a town hall at San Diego City College about closing a major tax loophole in California that could lessen the impact of the #TrumpTaxScam. The ‘Make It Fair’ forum will discuss a proposal to revise Proposition 13, which currently allows corporations to claim the same property tax protections as the homeowners the measure was intended to protect.   [Read more…]

Lori Saldaña: Remembering the October 2007 Wildfires

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As we approach the anniversary of the massive October 2007 wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced thousands of San Diegans- I think of Hawaii.

That’s because, on the Sunday the massive wildfires started in San Diego- just a few miles east of the 76th Assembly district I represented- I was flying westward over the Pacific, looking forward to a relaxing week on Maui. It had been windy, dry, and hot in San Diego as the flight departed, so I welcomed the relatively mild tropical island weather and rented a convertible for the drive to town.

Unfortunately, the fires intensified rapidly throughout the day. But I watched a baseball playoff game, not the news, when I got to Lahaina and remained unaware of what was happening. After the game, I went out and bought a week’s worth of groceries from a supermarket, then went to bed.
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Ginning Up Fear Over California Fires and Hepatitis A

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Right now, right here in San Diego, we have prototypes being built for a wall of shame.

The facts about our border with Mexico don’t matter; that border cities generally have low crime rates, unlawful border crossings are down, people and/or drugs are being mostly smuggled through regular ports of entry.  

The Trump administration is dead-set on spending tens of billions of dollars for a symbolic barrier as a testament to their success in selling fear of the ‘other’ as a vehicle for dismantling the social safety net and lining the pockets of their loony financiers.

The President took time out yesterday from disrespecting grieving widows and boosting conspiracy theories floated by Putin’s propagandists to Tweet out a video of the construction in Otay Mesa.

Let’s look around at what Trump’s allies have been up to lately and see if we can find anything in common.   [Read more…]

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