By Nadi Prupis / Common Dreams
The ongoing Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protests were hit with violence on Saturday, as private security forces reportedly hired by the pipeline builders descended on the Native American activists with pepper spray and dogs that bit and threatened the protesters.
Democracy Now!, which was on the ground at the time, posted several photographs and video of the attack [Read more…]
After two years and more than five thousand proposed laws, resolutions, and constitutional amendments, the current version of the California Legislature wrapped up its session in frenzied fashion. Wednesday, August 31st saw more than one hundred bills up for consideration. Now it’s up to the Governor to say yea or nay on legislation affecting all aspects of life in California.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-80), who successfully shepherded 19 of 20 bills through the legislature this year, is leaving nothing up to chance with her hard-fought victory on AB 1066, gradually phasing in standards for farmerworker overtime.
She’s started a petition drive for voters to let the Governor know they want this bill signed. [Read more…]
A couple of weeks back, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump told a largely white audience in Michigan that he’d win 95% of the black vote during his 2020 re-election campaign.
He’s got his work cut out for him. Public Policy Polling released a preview of a new poll on “The Rachel Maddow Show” Monday night showing Donald Trump’s favorability rating among African-American voters at 0 percent. 97% of those polled knew for sure they didn’t care for him. 3% were undecided. And there’s the matter of winning the 2016 election.
Public Policy Polling skews liberal, so it’s best to take this result with a grain of salt. But this isn’t the first survey showing Trump doing extremely poorly with black voters. [Read more…]
Tuition and fees for public colleges in the US rose 80 percent between 2000 and 2014 while American household income fell seven percent during the same period, according to recent data published by ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism outlet.
The data shows yearly tuition and public schools across the US rose $3,563 in adjusted 2014 dollars, and the median household income was $4,067 less in 2014 compared to 2000.
Using the online tool ProPublica provided, which allows users to obtain information specific to their state, we learn tuition and fees increased 162 percent in California, more than double the average. Students in California paid $5,327 more in 2014 than did an earlier generation of aspiring scholars back at the turn of the millennium. Those attending California colleges and universities paid $1,674 more in tuition and fees than the average American student in 2014. [Read more…]
The disappointment at the California Capitol building was palpable as the legislature adjourned on Thursday without voting on a bill granting farm workers overtime pay after eight hours or more than 60 hours in a week.
The vote was postponed to Monday in the face of uncertainty about the support of business-friendly Democrats facing political pressure from agribusiness interests. When leaders realized they might be short of the 41 votes they needed, they pulled the bill from the Assembly floor.
Hundreds of farm workers came on buses from around the state came to Sacramento to rally in support of Assembly Bill 1066, authored by Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego. A similar proposal died in June four votes short of the majority it needed to pass and supporters were there to witness what many assumed would be a turnaround. [Read more…]
Around this time last year, the city of San Diego signed an Economic Development Assistance Agreement with Illumina, Inc. It was approved on August 7th as a “Consent Item” without pre-hearing noticing. The ten year deal included a promise to rebate $1.5 million in sales and use taxes in return for retaining “over 100 middle-wage manufacturing job opportunities” in San Diego.
SDFP editor Doug Porter wrote at the time Illumina is in the genomics business, and it is exactly the kind of company the city should be encouraging to put down roots and prosper here. This deal made by the Faulconer administration, however, is exactly the kind of governance the city doesn’t need.
So how is Illumina doing one year later? What has the public received in return for its largesse? [Read more…]
There’s disagreement over how many horses have died at the Del Mar races this year. Animal rights advocates say it’s 18. The Union-Tribune says 16. The Daily Racing Form says 14. Some of the variance, no doubt, comes from the time frame from when it was reported.
Regardless of the final number–and it’s likely to increase by the time the summer season ends on Labor Day–more horses have died this year than last. Betting is down, and purses for the last two weeks of the season have been reduced by another 5% on top of the across the board 10% reduction from 2015.
Saturday was supposed to be the biggest day of the racing season at Del Mar, the $1 million Pacific Classic, including big name horses Beholder, California Chrome, and Dortmund. It started with another death. [Read more…]
By Bill Adams / UrbDeZine
“Why does Chris Cate want the Chargers to leave San Diego? Please call and ask him.”
That was the headline in an ad Dean Spanos, the Chargers owner, ran this past week targeting 2nd year City Council member Chris Cate, who is on the leadership committee of the No Downtown Stadium – Jobs and Streets First! coalition. Nearly all of the City Council members have voiced opposition to Spanos’s audacious public money grab to fund a downtown stadium for his pro-football team (Ballot Measure C. – disingenuously entitled “Citizens Initiative” – full text). But Cate has taken the extra step of being a leader on the coalition. David Alvarez has also endorsed the coalition, Todd Gloria opposes the Spanos initiative because it prevents a contiguous convention center expansion, and Scott Sherman has authored a study critical of Spanos’s reliance on Indianapolis as a favorable example of combined stadium and convention facilities, such as Spanos proposes.
In an age of partisan politics, this coalition has been a rare instance of bipartisan agreement. [Read more…]
A decision by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen rejecting a legal settlement that would have divided up to $100 million among about 380,000 Uber drivers to resolve claims they’ve been treated as independent contractors instead of employees may be beside the point.
The settlement would have paid as much as $8,000 to some drivers, but the majority would receive $24 or less. And the question of their status would largely remain unresolved.
In any case, it looks like Uber’s planning on just dumping its people. The San Francisco-based ride share company, according to Bloomberg, is rolling out a program to test robo-rides in Pittsburgh this month, with the goal of replacing its one million drivers with automated vehicles as quickly as possible. [Read more…]
By John Stump
Rainbow Pipeline 1600 passes through heavily populated urban areas of San Diego, including my home community of City Heights. This pipeline is approaching 70 years of age and if it was human it would have retired, be collecting Social Security, and on Medicare. The San Bruno explosion made clear the scale of injury and property that could result from a pipeline failure. The Rainbow Pipeline 1600 is older, bigger, and under higher pressure than the disastrous San Bruno pipeline.
[Read more…]
By Paulina Gonzalez & Lori Gay / Capital & Main
Twenty years ago, the insurance industry narrowly escaped a requirement to reinvest its premiums in California communities. An alternative, voluntary program was created instead, the California Organized Investment Network (COIN) program. COIN was created at the request of California’s powerful insurance industry, instead of state legislation that would have required insurers to reinvest in the state’s underserved communities, similar to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) for the banking industry. But now insurance lobbyists are seemingly working behind the scenes to kill a reporting mechanism in this voluntary program — which begs the question, Why?
By making safe and sound investments in the COIN program, insurance companies can help promote positive social and environmental initiatives, including renewable energy projects, community affordable housing, economic development and small business lending, while receiving a reasonable rate of return.
[Read more…]
Why did elected officials unanimously support an L.A. developer’s failed attempt to bring a shopping mall to the city’s Agua Hedionda Lagoon last year?
Carlsbad voters may find an answer in the August 1 Financial Disclosure Statements filed by incumbent city council candidates Keith Blackburn and Lorraine Wood. Just follow the money they’ve already raised this year, combined with their 2012 campaign stashes, to see why city leaders get along so well with developers.
There’s a lot of overlap in the special interest groups supporting Blackburn and Wood. Topping the list is one of the few local residents with a financial interest in winning the favor of council members, James Ukegawa. He’s the owner of the Carlsbad Strawberry Company. Other than the billionaire developer, he’s also the single individual who had the most to gain from the lagoon mall project. [Read more…]
