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The Trump of Pahrump, the Unholy Trinity and Other Dystopian Tales

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The Trump of Pahrump is dead.  

Yes, the world’s most famous brothel owner, Dennis Hof, left this world peacefully last week in bed at the Love Ranch only hours after celebrating at his birthday party/campaign rally.  The event was held to aid Hof in his quest to secure a seat in the Nevada state legislature as a Republican, a race he was heavily favored to win. Hof is best known for his HBO reality TV show about the Moonlight Bunny Ranch and his biography, The Art of the Pimp, which gleefully riffs off of the title of the President’s paean to himself.  

Just hours before his untimely demise, Hof was cheerfully holding court at an event that featured the trio of porn star Ron Jeremy, Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  To top it all off, they were joined by Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson, who offered birthday wishes to America’s Pimp by video feed. It was a good night for Hof who, despite the uncomfortable facts that he is both now dead and accused of rape by several former employees, is still a sure bet to win the election in his heavily Republican district largely populated by good Christian folks committed to Making America Great Again.     [Read more…]

Standing Tall in a Basement in Atlanta

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I’ve been dealing with some back issues but a trip to Atlanta, especially moments I spent in a church basement there, got me standing as tall as I can.

Being in Atlanta, a Black Mecca, made me rejoice in just being black and alive.

I mean there were people who looked like me everywhere I trained my eyes: in the airport, in front of and behind counters; serving and being served; pushing wheelchairs and being pushed in wheelchairs; announcing flights and boarding flights – in the hotel doing every job there is to be done in the hotel industry.   [Read more…]

Black and Brown Families of Victims Unite on National Day Against Police Brutality

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By R. Zamora

In San Diego 897 people have been killed by law-enforcement since the 1950s. My cousin, Jonathon Coronel, is among these statistics. My cousin was unarmed and surrendered on the ground, yet still shot 22 times by San Diego Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Villanueva.

As if riddling one body with 22 hollow-point bullets wasn’t terrorizing to our community enough, Christopher Villanueva tortured another human being to death, Sergio Weick, just eleven months prior to murdering Jonathon Coronel. Villanueva fired 26 gunshots onto Sergio Weick. Someone who is firing excessive shots, so excessive that he had to reload his gun, onto one human being clearly does not fear for his life but rather enjoys asserting his deadly power.

Officers like him have been empowered to continue their terrorizing behavior thanks to the District Attorney’s refusal to charge any officers that have overstepped their boundaries for murder. Between 2005 – 2015 there have been 155 police killings and all have been deemed “justified” by the District Attorney’s office. Summer Stephan is continuing this legacy by refusing to hold police officers accountable for illegal behavior, ultimately condoning the stripping of due process. She is expanding police officer’s role into one of judge, jury, and executioner.   [Read more…]

President Obama Demolishes These 7 Excuses Not To Vote | Video Worth Watching

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I’m guessing that if you’re reading the San Diego Free Press, you’re politically engaged enough that you have committed to vote this November. If I’m mistaken, or if you have friends that may be waffling or still undecided on whether or not to vote, here are some voter excuse-busters from our last president, Barack Obama, delivered with his signature low-key sense of humor.

And of course, to vote, you must be registered. To check your registration status go here. If you are not already registered, the deadline to register in order to vote on November 6th is today (Monday, 10/22) at midnight. The place to do that online is here. [Live links inside]   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: October 14-20

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This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week contains articles, commentaries, columns, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and locally and nationally sourced writers on caring enough to vote, judges, Measure YY, threatful Huncan Dunter, Dorn’s reporting life, Europe’s “failing” healthcare system, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s feisty, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Anselmo Sacasas – Trumpcrazy | Video Worth Watching

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What was the inspiration for this title? Was it a time-traveler? a psychic? a distant relative? random chance? a play on the word trumpet? For whatever reason Cuban musician Anselmo Sacasas chose this title, he laid down a mean mambo back in 1955 with this as its name, and with our current POTUS it somehow even rings true.   [Read more…]

Canned Heat – Election Blues | Video Worth Watching

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Canned Heat is more widely known for its hits “Going Up the Country” and “On the Road Again”, but here’s a lesser known one of their numbers from 1972 after Nixon was re-elected and features a theme that has been repeated all too often. One of the verses includes the lament “When votin’ time came, most people didn’t turn out at all”. Let’s not repeat that mistake. Make sure that you are registered to vote, then pledge to turn out to vote this year, even though it’s not a presidential election. Representation in Congress is just as important as who’s in the White House.   [Read more…]

Tell the Whole World You Care Enough to Vote | Progressive Activist Calendar October 19 – 29, 2018

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Having nothing positive to campaign on, reactionaries are relying upon the time-honored techniques of fear, loathing, and falsehoods. There is no wall. There is no Obamacare replacement. (Although Republicans who voted to dismember it are now claiming to want to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.)  There is no infrastructure program. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Republicans once believed would be the centerpiece of their re-election campaign, has given Wall Street a sugar rush and the average four grand bumps promised Americans is nowhere to be seen.

That’s why Ammar Campa-Najjar– a really decent human being–is being portrayed as a terrorist. That’s why Trump’s on the stump ginning up his base about hordes of brown people headed to the border.

There is only one defense against this kind of campaigning. YOU must take personal responsibility to make sure everybody around you votes. Make sure the world knows you voted. Tell everybody. Brag a little.   [Read more…]

Encountering Idols At LAX (KPOP’S NCT 127) | Geo-Poetic Spaces

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Behind the door god’s
ninety-nine paths

Initiates
voluntarily shed coats
remove shoes
submit their inner selves
to the scrutiny of electromagnetic waves

The absolved
float down narrow corridors
through automatic doors   [Read more…]

‘Duncan Hunter Jr. Is a Coward’ | Video Worth Watching

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The campaign for Duncan Hunter, Jr., the indicted U.S. Congressional Representative from California’s 50th Congressional District, has been running ads portraying his opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, as a security threat to the country. The reality: Ammar has had an FBI security clearance allowing him to serve in the federal government as recently as 2016. The real security threat: Duncan Hunter, Jr.

MSNBC’s All In’s Chris Hayes spoke with Ammar Thursday night about Hunter’s indictment and Paul Ryan’s stripping Hunter of his assignment on the Armed Services committee; Hunter’s refusal to participate in any debates; Hunter’s plan to raise the Social Security retirement age to 72, and his unwillingness to campaign on issues, relying instead on baseless fear-mongering. More info in Doug Porter’s Wednesday Starting Line column. Bye!   [Read more…]

California Politics | Odious Prop 8 Money, Questionable Prop 6 Polling, and a Nasty Ad for Marshall Tuck

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Ballot propositions draw big money like shit draws flies. The scatological reference is deliberate on my part because today I’m going to look at some election news that just plain stinks.

I have to admit to missing the ominous backstory on 2018’s Proposition 8, the one about kidney dialysis companies. I bought into the narrative that this was a battle between corporate ‘care’ companies and organized labor. And while it is true workers for these companies are trying to organize despite fierce opposition, the battle over this measure is a metaphor for the much bigger struggle over the future of healthcare.

Michael Hiltznik of the Los Angeles Times has unearthed the truth behind the motivations of the corporations willing to spend $99 million to defeat this measure.   [Read more…]

This Is What Voter Suppression Looks Like | Video Worth Watching

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From the Black Voters Matter Facebook page:
Voter suppression is real, y’all and it happened to us today in Louisville, Georgia in Jefferson County. We had a whole busload of beautiful black elders ready to go vote when the county commisionner shut us down and made our elders get off the bus without having the chance to vote. This is voter suppression pure and simple. These elders have been through this time and time again so today was fuel to our fire! Instead of bring five family members and friends, they’re gonna bring twenty! Can’t stop, won’t stop. When we work together, we win. Share this video for us to get out the word that we need a record turnout in Georgia from now untiol Election Day! And tell us if and where you voted yet in the comments!!   [Read more…]

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