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America Lost One of its Finest First Ladies…in 2011

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By Brett Warnke

I have perfect faith in my husband. But I’m always glad to see him enjoy a pretty girl. And when he stops looking, then I’m going to begin to worry…And he doesn’t have time for outside entertainment. Because I keep him busy.

No, these honest words were not uttered by the recently departed Nancy Davis Reagan. They’re Betty Ford’s.

Mrs. Ford was one of America’s most sincere, independent, and admirable first ladies. At a time of change for women she stood as a proud Republican but one who spoke openly about her own therapy with her psychiatrist, when the social stigma of such a practice could easily kill a career in mid-century America. But Mrs. Ford would not be quiet. She favored a woman’s control over her reproductive cycle, acknowledged the new reality of sex before marriage, and supported the Equal Rights Amendment. She danced, laughed loudly, and smiled broadly through interviews about how smoking a joint was just a part of life. She had a rather chivalrous husband who, despite being an athlete and probably the most physically fit President to hold the office, took a tumble to keep his wife upright. (Could you imagine if he had let her tumble instead?)   [Read more…]

Carlsbad City Council “Very Unfamiliar” with Lagoon Mall Review Process

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Three days after the San Diego Registrar of Voters announced the defeat of Carlsbad’s Measure A, Mayor Matt Hall was interviewed on KUSI. When asked how he and the city Council would deal with the fallout over an issue that had been unanimously approved by the Council before the people said no and called for a public vote, here was his reply:

“The city council, our role, is to process projects. And obviously there’s more than one way to process a project. We’re very knowledgeable about the CEQA way of doing things (the California Environmental Quality Act). Mr. Caruso chose to use the 9212 Report, which the city is very unfamiliar with. So part of the difficulty was trying to work our way through a 9212 Report and get clear understanding. Most of the people I’ve talked to leading up to this, that was their biggest concern, that there was this sidestep of CEQA. And I think that’s one of the things we really need to look at. And I know, from my personal belief, that anybody coming forward that want to use a 9212 Report I would say, (long pause, nervous chuckle) not my idea…”
  [Read more…]

Imperial Beach OKs Medical Marijuana …

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Imperial Beach again OKs medical marijuana to be cultivated by certain individuals for certain patients, while continuing to ban commercial production and local dispensaries. IB’s sister cities of National City and Chula Vista in recent months also voted against medicinal marijuana shops.   [Read more…]

When Does the Violation of Women’s Bodies Become a ‘Red Line’?

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If people divide their understanding of militarized violence into normal and not normal, acceptable and not acceptable, it makes a terrible kind of sense: violence against women has been “normalized.”

By Lauren Wolfe / Common Dreams

Two years ago I was on vacation in Maine when I started getting really, really mad. I’d been working to track sexualized violence in the Syrian war for a long time and had gotten very little response from policy makers despite many meetings with those in our government and the UK’s and at the UN.

Cases piled up, and response remained nil. And now suddenly President Obama was responding—but not to cases of rape, or torture, but to the possible use of chemical weapons. It was his so-called “red line”—the thing that would make him do something.   [Read more…]

How the Little People Crushed a Corporate Bully

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Preserving Carlsbad’s Future the Right Way

Citizen activism triumphed over corporate greed last week when Carlsbad voters defeated Measure A. If approved it would have transformed the quiet beauty of one of the city’s three pristine lagoons into the home of a Los Angeles-style shopping center/tourist magnet.

The 53 percent voter turnout surpassed SD County’s 45 percent in the 2014 gubernatorial election. The Citizens for North County activist group opposing the measure raised $115,000 in donations to produce 20,362 NO votes. That’s less than $6 per voter.
  [Read more…]

Questions About Police Intervention at Lincoln High Remain Unanswered

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The San Diego County District attorney’s office announced on Monday that video of an incident at Lincoln High School will not be released, according to a report on 10News. A SDUSD police officer was injured, two students were arrested and five people were hospitalized on Friday.

At issue are conflicting reports over what happened. Students say police overreacted to roughhousing. A cell phone video shows a police officer tasering a student lying face down and another officer pepper-spraying onlookers at the historically black high school. Police are asserting that an officer was jumped from behind and say more arrests are expected in the near future.   [Read more…]

Feeling a Need to Stand with Planned Parenthood After Watching “The View”

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I was watching the women on The View the other day talk about a video of John Kasich saying, in reference to a campaign he had won in Ohio years ago, that he had been victorious because “many women left their kitchens” to go door to door for him.

A woman didn’t take well to his remark and let him know that she would, never-the-less, come out to support him but wouldn’t do so from her “kitchen.”

“I gotcha,” Kasich replied, a bit embarrassed by his “a woman’s place is in the home” kind of faux pas.   [Read more…]

Americans Are Being Screwed by Drug Companies

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And It’s Not Obamacare’s Fault

You can blame lobbyists from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry in conjunction with Republican lawmakers who lobbied the Affordable Care Act to death making it in the long run unaffordable and probably untenable. Why? Because there are no cost containment features in the Act. None. Nada. Zippo.

What that means is that the drug companies can raise the prices of drugs 5000% like Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals did for Daraprim without breaking the law. Shkreli’s arrogance, the latest example of which is calling the Congressmen who interrogated him “imbeciles”, has gotten him into much trouble but not for raising the price of a life-saving drug 5000%.   [Read more…]

Hogarth at the San Diego Public Library

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By Brett Warnke

“What’s your proposal? To build the just city? I will.” –W.H. Auden

What does it mean to construct the just city today? San Diego is admittedly no Flint. As I write this, there are unpunished poisoners like Rick Snyder still giving speeches, doing fundraisers, outside of a prison cell, with the craven media establishment recording every utterance. And even further east, goldbricker frauds on Wall Street giggle their way through new swindles—ones we won’t discover until we once again stand at the lip of another recession when “tough choices” will again “have to be made” in order to “save Main Street.”

But San Diego is a city not immune to corruption. Our streets, too, are peopled with the chalked bodies of unarmed black and brown men. In July 2015 we even played host to the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC), that great instrument of business elites to capture the regulatory powers of the state for its own tax loopholes and favors. And just this year our local democracy was used by the Chamber of Commerce to thwart wage increases for thousands of workers.

What does it mean to construct a just city in such a corroded republic? “America’s finest city” is a city 41% more expensive than the rest of America, where people of every shade are scrabbling at the lower slopes of the wage scale and where 38% of residents, regardless of their neighborhood, are unable to earn enough to make a living. One method of coping is to laugh. Ours is a golden age of satire.   [Read more…]

#StandWithLincoln Incident Puts an Exclamation Point on Black History Month in San Diego

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An incident at San Diego’s historically black Lincoln High School on Friday involved students being tased and pepper sprayed by police from two agencies.

Students say police involvement was an overreaction to horseplay. The parent of a student who was jailed claims the arrest is revenge by the authorities. The ACLU says they are deeply concerned about what happened and are investigating.

The police say one officer suffered a concussion and has been placed on administrative leave. A cell-phone video shows the seemingly unharmed officer tasing a student laying face down on the ground.   [Read more…]

Beyond Liberal Schadenfreude: ‘Poorly Educated’ Voters Are Not Really Responsible for Trumpmania

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By Chauncey DeVega / Daily Kos

Tuesday’s Nevada caucuses were but one more battlefield on which Trumpmania easily vanquished its foes. Donald Trump, the American Il Duce and Mad Max’s Immortan Joe come to life in the form of a reality TV show host and real estate gangster capitalist, won 45.9 percent of the Republican vote. This was more support than his two nearest rivals combined.

Donald Trump stuck to a tried-and-true routine during his victory speech. The “Trumpeteers” are an easy crowd to move when in the presence of their demigod. Trump knows how to manipulate their anxieties, fears, worries, and hopes. Trump plays to the cheap seats—the lowest common denominator—as he brays about “making America great again,” killing “terrorists,” and building a wall on the Mexican border.

His public lives vicariously through Trump’s proto-fascist strongman routine. They are desperate to absorb his supposed vitality.   [Read more…]

Private Encroachments into Public Space: Ocean Beach Grows Wary

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From Restaurants to the Beach, Private Interests Are Taking More Public Grounds

The recent uproar among OBceans over the intrusions into public sidewalks by two Ocean Beach restaurants illustrates a broader and growing wariness by the public of the larger issue of encroachment by private interests into public space.

Just several weeks ago, two OB restaurants, The Joint and the yet-to-open OB Brewery – both on Newport Avenue – have installed permanent fixtures outside their establishments that seriously curtail pedestrian traffic and block the public access to the public sidewalk immediately in front of the restaurants.

The Joint put in tables with a metal fence and gate, taking the encroachment trend in OB’s “outdoor cafes” to a new level. The OB Rag ran a poll where 42% of the respondents agreed that what The Joint did was an encroachment into public space and agreed that the fence and tables should be removed. The OB Brewery also installed exterior fencing that significantly narrows the public walkway.

The future of these intrusions into what many feel are the public’s right-of-way has yet to be ultimately decided, but the response by locals reflects a growing wariness among OBceans – and others who live up and down the coast or near parks – to what they perceive as an invasion into public space by people with private interests as their motivation.
  [Read more…]

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