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March for Truth Organizes as Putin’s Puppet Starts to Dance

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This weekend people in 140+ cities will take to the streets to say facts matter. The March for Truth represents a collective demand for a thorough investigation and complete disclosure of events surrounding the ascension of Donald Trump to the White House.

This protest takes on an even greater importance in the wake of developments over the past few days.

The White House–responding to demands conveyed through quasi-state media–is prepared, according to the Washington Post, to return properties in the U.S. seized from Russia in retaliation for interference in our electoral process.

President Vladimir Putin has backed off of previous denials of Russian involvement in US politics, saying “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year to help the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.   [Read more…]

Congressman Darrell Issa’s Confefe Problem

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Can He Escape From The Shadow of the Chicken?

Congressman Darrell Issa has not been having a good month. I’m choosing to use President Trump’s late night twitter typo as an adjective to describe just how bad it’s been.

He (and his minions) have been squabbling with the press. The month began with the “None of your business” snarl, continued with an (allegedly) raised middle finger and ended with a bizarre phone call to a politics reporter with the Union-Tribune.   [Read more…]

Border Patrol Confirms National City Parents In Custody, No Criminal Charges Filed

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Special to North of the Fence

Last Friday, North of the Fence published information about the apprehension of the Francisco Duarte and Rosenda Perez who are currently in custody pending immigration hearings, leaving their four children on their own in National City.

The facts unfolded almost moment-to-moment last week, not all of them immediately accurate. On Wednesday morning, the National City Elementary Teachers Association, run by volunteer teachers who also work full-time, received calls and information saying a mother and father had been detained by ICE while dropping their students off at Las Palmas Elementary School.

Later, it was found ICE was not involved. Instead, U.S. Border Patrol confirmed they were the ones who arrested Francisco Duarte at 7:30am as he was exiting a liquor store near the intersection of Palm Avenue and E. 18th Street in National City.   [Read more…]

Hurry Up and Slow Down: Tales of San Diego Politics

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Timing is everything for the overlords of America’s Finest Tourist Plantation. Two seemingly unrelated stories published today at Voice of San Diego provide insight into how controlling the pace of things gets played locally.

Got a sweet deal for your investors? Play the hurry up game before anybody notices warts and wrinkles, as is happening with the SoccerCity proposal for redeveloping the Mission Valley stadium site, along with a scheme to raise taxes paid by hotel guests to expand the Convention Center packaged with bandaids for failures in governance.

See some bad news coming down the line? Slow walk it while you muddy the details and hope public interest wanes, like what happened with the San Diego State University study on the bias of police.   [Read more…]

Waiting for Proposition 47’s Crime Wave in San Diego

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Will the Mayor and Police Chief Be Eating Crow for Past Predictions Anytime Soon?

Last week the Mayor of San Diego’s media machine began beating the drum following the release of crime statistics for the first four months of 2017. Visitors should feel safer knowing the crime rate was the lowest it’s been since 1990, we were told.  

“As we head into peak travel season, San Diegans and visitors alike can rest assured that our city remains one of the safest in America thanks to the tireless efforts of our police officers,” according to Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “This report shows that our officers are doing an incredible job by protecting the public and forging bonds with residents in all neighborhoods.”   [Read more…]

What’s the Matter with San Diego Labor (Part 3): A Divided Movement Hurts Us All

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South Bay Democrats Show the Way with Resolution in Support of a United Labor Movement

Last week, the first meeting of the newly reorganized San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council was a refreshingly upbeat gathering as the local movement recommitted itself to weathering the storm and reinventing the Labor Council as a far more democratic and activist organization that will do everything it can to engage union members and organize the unorganized.  

One of the most encouraging moments of the night came when Doug Moore of the United Domestic Workers spoke about the pressing need to rebuild real, less transactional relationships with our allies in the community.  This is a very good thing.  

So the news out of the Labor Council is that rank and file democracy is on its way back. The organization that still represents 90,000 of the 120,000 union workers in our region has righted the ship despite the failure of the former top leadership and the ill-advised, deeply destructive behavior of a handful of leaders who acted in a unilateral fashion as they unethically planned to form a rival organization even as they were being paid out of the dues money of all union workers in the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council.     [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: May 21-27

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This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, cartoonists, and sourced writers on: the California Democratic Convention, targeting Hunter, Issa’s exclusive town hall, what’s wrong with labor in SD (Kasparian!), ICE raids in National City, Carlsbad reluctantly approving district elections, AB 784 and AB805, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Jacaranda

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You wilted
before the severely pruned branches
returned
before throbbing cuts healed

In earlier seasons
I wondered why anyone would plant a tree
they could not let grow?   [Read more…]

A Spymaster’s Clandestine Speech and the Importance of June Third’s March for Truth

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Progressive Activist Calendar for San Diego May 27 – June 5

There are numerous self-appointed investigators plugging away at unraveling the Trump-Russia connections. Hardly a day goes by without Twitter blowing up for an hour or two about impending indictments, grand juries, and the juicy piece of evidence that will bring down the House of Trump.

I know from being a reporter in Washington DC during the Watergate years about the fatal flaw of many conspiracy theorists: the desire for attention and fame at the heart of their ‘investigations’ inevitably leads to bigger and bolder semi-truths morphing into outright lies.

I follow just about all these people on Twitter, mostly because even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day. They’re right in sensing something rotten in the White House; they’re wrong when they invent anonymous sources to validate their speculation.   [Read more…]

Discrimination Lawsuit Over Rejecting Refugee Children Taps Escondido Treasury

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The City of Escondido has settled a two-year-old discrimination lawsuit, filed by the ACLU following denial of a permit to operate a group home for refugee children fleeing violence and persecution in Central America.

The terms of the agreement, whereby Escondido will pay $550,000 without admitting liability were approved at a closed session of the City Council on Wednesday evening.

The ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, Brancart & Brancart, Cooley LLP and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law made the deal public via a press release issued on Thursday, May 25.   [Read more…]

ICE Raids Near National City Schools, Parents Arrested, Children Left Unattended

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The National City Elementary Teacher’s Association issued a disturbing media advisory on Wednesday, May 24th. With a total population of approximately 60,000 in National City, 63% of National City residents identify on census records as Hispanic and another 18% as Asian. The median household income is $38,849. (See these Fast Facts)

[UPDATE 5/27/2017: Protestors gathered at 2pm on Friday, May 26th at Otay Mesa Detention Center. Several media outlets covered the protests and uncovered additional information. According to two reports, the Duarte parents were apprehended near their home, not near a National City school.

In addition, 10 News reported: “Duarte says undercover federal immigration agents, in unmarked cars, showed up outside their home in National City Tuesday and arrested his parents. ICE denies that claim to 10 News.   [Read more…]

Congressman Duncan Hunter Okay With Assaulting Reporter “If He Deserved It”

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In today’s episode of Stupid Things Republicans Do, Rep. Duncan Hunter gets first mention thanks to a quote reported by the Associated Press concerning the assault of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs by Montana House of Representatives candidate Greg Gianforte.

San Diego-born Gianforte, has been charged with misdemeanor assault after losing his temper and “body slamming” the reporter when he asked for comment on the Congressional Budget Office scoring of the House Trumpcare bill.

The tech millionaire is running in a special election to replace Ryan Zinke, who resigned earlier this year to serve as Secretary of the Interior in the Trump administration. Although polling indicated Democratic candidate Rob Quist was showing surprising strength, Gianforte was widely expected to win, as Montana is a solidly Republican state.   [Read more…]

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