Need
Is migrating from all four directions
An unbroken procession
of broken lives
that pauses to tie prayers
on the wishing tree [Read more…]
Weekly Progressive Calendar for San Diego: February 10-22, 2017
Over Two Dozen Ways to Get Involved and Make Your Voice Heard
Congratulations, resistees! We have survived 1.4% of Donald Trump’s (only) four-year term. It’s more important than ever to remember we’re involved in a marathon, not a sprint.
The latest polling results are out as I write this, and they offer encouragement for those of us involved in this movement. Support for impeaching the president has risen from 40% to 46% in the past week. NBC’s Saturday Night Live comedy now has more credibility than the man in the oval office.
Congress-critters from around the country, even those in so-called safe districts are seeing angry voters whenever they appear in public. And when they won’t appear in public –we’re talking about you, Darrell Issa– congressional town halls sans congress-critters are being organized. [Read more…]
$16 Million Later, Where Are San Ysidro School District’s Solar Panels?
“… nine years and $16 million later, not a single solar panel has been installed.” Christine Huard at the San Diego Union Tribune reports this week.
Already back in April 2016, the U-T reported that the project was running behind schedule. A presentation by Manazana Energy had the owner quoted as saying, “November-December 2015: Ribbon Cutting. System Testing and Commissioning. Handover of System.”
In that very same article, the U-T wrote:
“We’re in April and nothing has been done,” said Rose Estevez, who has three children enrolled in San Ysidro schools. “It does concern me and a lot of other parents. We don’t know where this money went. We don’t know why the solar panels are not up yet.” [Read more…]
In This Post-Filner Era, the Democratic Party and the Labor Council Need to Do Better
An open letter to Jessica Hayes, (Chair, San Diego Democratic Party) and Dale Kelly Bankhead (Secretary-Treasurer for the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council), from Sara Kent.
Over the past two months, I have hoped for brave action from each of you. As women who hold positions of power in San Diego who should be stalwarts of fundamental Democratic ideals, instead of being proud of your leadership, I am gravely disappointed.
Not only for you, but for all of us. [Read more…]
Dueling Downtown Protests Set as Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Escalates
Guadalupe García de Rayos was taken into custody by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Phoenix during a routine check-in with the agency on Wednesday.
Seven people were arrested as dozens of immigration activists blocked the gates surrounding the office in an effort to stop several vans and a bus from leaving. The mother of two was photographed attempting to communicate with her children from inside one of the vehicles, which are used to transport people in ICE custody to detention centers, or to Arizona’s border with Mexico for deportation.
Observers fear this could be the beginning of a nationwide crackdown, targeting as many as 8 million people. [Read more…]
The San Jose Solution for Emergency Shelter
A state law allowing emergency sleeping cabins could work for San Diego too.
San Diego County / City of San Diego are in the middle of a serious emergency shelter crisis. The Point in Time Count numbers for 2016 for the county counted 8,692 homeless persons, with an 18.9% increase in the number of unsheltered individuals. Numbers from the recent count will not be available until April, but are expected to be worse. San Diego has the unenviable distinction of having the 4th highest number of homeless people in the nation – more than Las Vegas, Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco. By comparison, Santa Clara County / San Jose reported 6,556 homeless persons in 2015, and came in 9th for number of homeless people.
The San Jose Solution – San Jose took bold action to address the human crisis. [Read more…]
‘Nevertheless, She Persisted.’ One Heck of a Resist Trump Tuesday
Indivisible Gets Visible at Local Congressional Offices, National City Hearing
Mitch McConnell and his Republican friends in the United States Senate handed the resistance movement a gift on Tuesday night when they invoke an obscure rule to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she read from a letter by Coretta Scott King concerning the record of Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions.
The letter was addressed to then-Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1986. In it, King objected to Sessions nomination to be a federal judge due to his use of “the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens.” King continued, “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of this office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.” [Read more…]
It’s Time to Clean House at SANDAG
Andy Keatts story at Voice of San Diego about SANDAG (San Diego’s Regional Planning Agency) prompted one of those “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” moments for me yesterday.
He’s obtained emails showing the agency’s executive director and other high-ranking officials deliberately misled the public regarding economic forecasts with significant errors overstating sales tax revenues expected for transportation projects included as part of Measure A. [Read more…]
Alt-President Bannon Presides and Other Tales of Trump
Today we’ll look at some recent developments as the divisions of power within the White House are coming into focus.
So-called President Donald Trump is there for the fame and fortune. Vice President Pence and his buddy Reince Priebus are there to oversee the dismantling of the new deal social contract. And ‘Economic Nationalist’ Steve Bannon is overseeing the reshuffling of the world order while tweaking domestic social policies.
The rise of a nationwide resistance continues. While Senate Democrats won’t actually achieve the historically rare feat of denying cabinet confirmations, the drip, drip, drip of damning information combined with an increasingly aware and active electorate will continue to challenge the administration’s priorities. [Read more…]
The Separation Clause of the Constitution and the Johnson Amendment
By Michael-Leonard Creditor
Our president has a bug up his ass about the Johnson Amendment, part of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 prohibiting 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations from conducting political campaign activities to intervene in elections to public office. He thinks it unfairly restricts free speech.
But here’s the thing: the Johnson Amendment doesn’t stop church leaders from speaking out. Firstly, political activity is allowed so long as pastors stop short of directly or indirectly endorsing. But, even if pastors do actually endorse a candidate or ballot measure, only one church is known to have actually lost its tax-exemption due to electioneering. Also, some defiant clergy have repeatedly and for years, deliberately disregarded the Johnson Amendment. Some have even sent transcripts of their speeches to the IRS. That one church that lost its exemption, that was back in 1995.
All this rule does is pose a choice for clergy: do you wanna be a church or in politics? If you want the tax-exemption of being a church, you should simply stay out of politics. Can’t do both; choose. And this gets to the heart of the whole separation clause thing. I think the amendment solidifies the separation-of-church-and-state intent of the founding fathers. [Read more…]
Resist and Persist: Trump Can’t Stand It
The third weekend of the Trump administration saw protests and organizing events in cities large and small around the country.
Two Republican Congressman ignored the advice of their colleagues to stay away from in-person town halls and ended up having catching hell. Republican Reps. Tom McClintock in Roseville Ca., and Mike Coffman in Aurora, Co. tried and failed to limit attendance at their events; both ended up calling for a police escort to escape constituents angry over attempts to repeal Obamacare.
In San Diego, an organizing meeting for the downtown chapter of nascent Indivisible network drew nearly 200 people on Saturday. The Indivisible national registry indicates more than 50 such groups have sprung up in San Diego County since the Women’s March. [Read more…]
How Not to Be the Resistance: Local Democratic Party and Union Leaders Fail Early Test
Last week I dedicated my column to outlining how, despite the emergence of inspiring protests in the streets and amongst the progressive base, many key Democratic figures in Congress and in the national leadership of the building trades unions still didn’t seem to understand what time it was. Sadly, it only took a few more days to see a couple of stunning examples of how not to be the resistance right here in San Diego.
On January 26th, Jessica Hayes, the newly elected chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party, took advantage of her presence at a forum hosted by the Democrats for Equality entitled “#The Resistance: Women Lead the Way” to attack not the dangerous plutocrats running the country, but a key element of the Democratic base: unions.
The last few weeks have also held its challenges for local labor leadership as protesters, including Donna Frye and Irene McCormack, picketed outside the monthly delegates meeting at which there was no mention whatsoever of the elephant in the room, the lawsuits filed against Labor Council President Mickey Kasparian and what this means for local labor at this perilous moment in the history of the movement. [Read more…]
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