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Feckless Democrats and Business Unionists Fail Early Trump Era Tests

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Making Deals with the Devil

As inspiring as the big marches were last week, it didn’t take long for evidence to emerge that there are still plenty of folks in the Democratic party and elsewhere who just don’t get what time it is. As I wrote on Martin Luther King Jr. day, it was dismaying to see prominent Democrats like Senator Cory Booker and twelve of his Big Pharma funded friends vote against Bernie Sanders’ effort to reduce prescription drug prices before the inauguration.

And that low bar was then pushed a bit further down when ex-Democratic Vice Presidential candidate and consummate corporate tool, Joe Lieberman, gleefully presented Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos while slamming American public education at her confirmation hearing. At that same hearing, Lieberman also failed to disclose that his law firm represents Trump.   [Read more…]

Love Really Does Trump Hate

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I could have never imagined a president like the one we’ve got today. Is there anybody who is anybody on the planet as hateful as he is?

I saw him on TV the other day and he was spewing hate every whichaway, talking to the Homeland Security employees in his signature pose: his index finger and thumb forming a circle in the shade of three fingers that seem embarrassed to be on his hand, still basking in the glow of having made a sucker out of a country, a land, that has no idea as to who or what it is.

He spoke in “gloom and doom” tones of a country that’s breaking down at the seams, riddled with crime, overrun by “illegal immigrants” – but don’t worry he was going to take care of them and build a wall that will keep vermin like them where they belong and Mexico was going to pay for the wall after we paid for it first. Yeah, and it doesn’t snow in Minneapolis in the wintertime.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: Jan 22-29

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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 Women’s March(es), protests, Trump’s executive orders, Frye and McCormack calling out Kasparian, public education under assault, our border under siege by Trump, ACLU taking action, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

San Diegans Responding to Trump Muslim Ban With Airport Protests

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As of Noon Sunday, two thousand people have responded to a call on Facebook for a protest scheduled for Terminal 2 (International Arrivals) at Lindbergh Field starting at 5pm.

According to social media posts, the theme for the demonstration is #NoBan #NoWall.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Teardrops in a Bucket

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What appears
to be an ordinary bucket
is a sacred vessel
blessed by hands
burned on desert death marches
carried during the Armenian Genocide.
  [Read more…]

Trump News Brings on the Blues

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Nobody said this was gonna be easy

Hey did you hear the news? Donald Trump has been president for one week.

While there is some truth to the sense that each day of this week has felt like ten, the sound and the fury masks some very real problems in the new administration.

Let’s stand things on their head for a moment and look for some silver linings.   [Read more…]

The San Diego-Tijuana Border Under Siege? Donald Trump’s Executive Order

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I’m back with your weekly North of the Fence: a summary of news covering the South Bay, San Diego (which includes San Ysidro, Otay Mesa, Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and National City). In sum: What isn’t happening at the border this week?

  • President Donald Trump signed “orders Wednesday to start construction of a border wall, expand authority to deport thousands, increase the number of detention cells and punish cities and states that refuse to cooperate,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Donna Frye and Irene McCormack Show Solidarity with Kasparian’s Accusers

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“Doing nothing is not an option for people of good conscience.”

On a cold Wednesday evening in Kearny Mesa prominent San Diegans Donna Frye and Irene McCormack joined community members to show their solidarity with Sandy Naranjo, Isabel Vasquez and Anabel Arauz and call for the resignation of the President of UFCW Local 135 and San Diego and Imperial Labor Council, Mickey Kasparian.

Naranjo, Vasquez, and Arauz filed separate lawsuits against Kasparian accusing him of gender discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and other misdeeds. Also named in all three complaints are the union itself and in Arauz’s filing, Richard Barerra, executive assistant of the local.

McCormack was the chief communications aide to disgraced, former mayor Bob Filner and the first of many women to accuse him of sexual harassment. Former City Councilwoman Donna Frye, alongside lawyers Cory Briggs and Marco Gonzalez, was the first person to come out publicly to condemn Filner and call for his resignation.   [Read more…]

Voter Fraud Claims: Amping Up the Crazy With an Eye Towards 2018

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There is no greater threat to democracy in the United States than voter fraud. I am not, however, referring to the ballot box stuffing variety envisioned by the purveyors of online paranoia.

It’s the logic behind the claims on this subject being made by the President and his minions that counts. They all lead to the same conclusion: some people’s votes are more valuable than others.

Donald Trump admitted as much during an astonishing interview with ABC News by asserting that none of the claimed fraudulent voters cast ballots on his behalf. Nevermind that arrests in the 2016 elections involving actual presidential ballots involved people trying to cast votes for the GOP candidate.   [Read more…]

Pipelines, Propaganda, and Even More Protests

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Indigenous Tribes, Environmentalists, and Scientists Feel Trump’s Wrath

The number one selling book on Amazon earlier this week was George Orwell’s ‘1984’ the classic story of a world of government surveillance, propaganda and “newspeak.” In the book, the “Ministry of Truth” actually delivers lies.

I suspect this uptick in sales (and the announcement of additional printing by Penguin Books) comes from the realization by Americans that lying is officially part of the new administration’s program.

Now it’s time to acknowledge ‘alternative facts’ are just one part of what’s going on. The tactics of this administration also include chaos, as proven by the rapid-fire attacks on institutions, humans, and the planet over the past couple of days.   [Read more…]

A Deplorable Deplorable: Rep. Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services

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Hillary Clinton jumped the gun when she called out Donald Trump’s more extreme supporters as ‘deplorables.’ Now I am having trouble finding a better word to describe the new President’s cabinet choices.

As I’m writing this, Georgia Congressman Tom Price is appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, which in theory is vetting him over whether he’s qualified to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Despite criticism from Democrats based on a bipartisan memo to lawmakers by Senate Finance Committee staff disclosing even more red flags concerning the congressman’s tax returns and financial disclosure statements, Price will ultimately be confirmed.   [Read more…]

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