It’s ba-a-a-a-ck! Another sneak attack on health care! The Republicans first attempt at legislation after coming to power in Congress was to try to engineer a tax give-away to the top 1% by masquerading it as a Repeal & Replace of Obamacare. When that failed they just shifted to directly drafting legislation to implement their tax cut for the super rich, attempting to pass it off as “tax reform” and a middle-class tax cut. Now, in an effort to find yet more sources of funds to deliver those tax cuts, Senate Republicans are calling for an end to the individual mandate component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Essentially this will drive premiums up for those who would still be able to afford it and make health insurance unaffordable for about 13 million people, thus “saving” the government about 338 billion over the next 10 years. Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s All In and Senator Ron Wyden break it down. [Read more…]
County Elections Matter: Matt Strabone’s Campaign for Assessor/Recorder/Clerk
Will the Blue Wave of victorious Democratic party candidates in recent elections include San Diego?
The incumbent office holders of down-ballot county seats are hoping they’ll fly under the progressive radar come June 5, 2018. That’s because candidates in San Diego County can win outright –avoiding a November runoff– with a simple majority vote. Though county contests are technically non-partisan, the reality is local office holders at the county level are among the last local bastions of Republicans.
A smaller turnout and the older, more conservative profile of primary voters has all-but-assured an indefinite tenure for county positions like Assessor/Clerk, Sheriff, and District Attorney. And, when they’re ready to retire, they simply quit mid-term, ensuring a carefully groomed deputy appointed by five white Republican County Supervisors will have the advantages of incumbency in the next election. [Read more…]
County Government Laid Bare
Part I: Who knew the race for San Diego County Board of Supervisors could be so hidden, so mysterious?
County government leaders have gotten negative press lately with charges of complacency … neglect … elitism … callousness … and worse! But that hasn’t stopped a vigorous set of candidates from vying for a seat on the tarnished Board of Supervisors.
What an intriguing mystery! It’s time for girl-crusader-for-good-government Nancy Drew to do some sleuthing.
She’s got five big questions about county government. And she’s got a few question for the candidates whose eyes are glued on the June 2018 primary election. All she wants are the facts, ma’am. [Read more…]
Silencing Women in Politics – The Threat to Democracy From Gender-Based Online Harassment | Video Worth Watching
An necessary element to having more women in elected office is the need to have women run for office. A critical step in making that happen is identifying and overcoming barriers that discourage women from running for office. One barrier is the disproportional amount of hateful and misogynistic personal online attacks. Here’s a video that sheds light on some non-partisan work being done on that front. More information on this project here. [Read more…]
Gropey Old Perverts Need a Tax Bill Win to Keep Billionaire Contributions Flowing
Republicans in both the House and Senate are working as fast as they can to pass a tax law overhaul. The House version will likely pass if the party leadership can slip some anti-anxiety drugs into the drinking water for GOP deficit hawks. The real battle will be–as it was with TrumpCare–in the U.S. Senate.
Despite promises to have all the pieces for some version of this legislation ready for the President to sign by the end of the year, chances of it happening are mighty slim.
It will take fifty Senators, plus the tiebreaker from Vice President Pence to pass whatever emerges from the House-Senate reconciliation process, a process that will be considerably harder if the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama, Roy Moore, loses in the December 12 special election. [Read more…]
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Ross, Putin’s son-in-law linked by the Paradise Papers | Video Worth Watching
Q: What do Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Putin’s son-in-law Kirill Shamalov and offshore islands have in common? A: The Paradise Papers. Here is Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman speaking with Frederik Obermaier, investigative reporter for the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and co-author of the Paradise Papers. Frederik discusses the techniques and consequences of the offshoring of wealth, and names some names of figures discovered as complicit. Among the names are two of the current administration’s cabinet: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
On a somber note, Obermaier notes that this type of reporting is not without risk. A colleague, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was part of the team working on the Panama Papers—an earlier much more limited release of records from the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca—was murdered in a bomb blast in early October. Her reporting had focused on the corruption of Maltese officials revealed in the Panama Papers and she had reported receiving death threats fifteen days before the fatal explosion. [Read more…]
2018: Time to Clean House in County Government
Imagine, if you will…
A place in California where a single official believes he has the power to turn back the clock on same-sex marriage… A place where investigations into the deaths of people in jail are dismissed… A place where elected officials get to pick their successors…
…A place where a politician can pick up the phone and order police retaliation on people whose views he doesn’t share… A place where hundreds of millions of dollars sit undisturbed while homelessness spreads unabated, while a single elected official can pledge $150 million for a sports stadium.
Welcome to San Diego County, a place where the basic functions of government have morphed into fiefdoms of neglect and a culture of corruption prevents transparency. [Read more…]
Donna Brazile is Still Right: The Culture of the Democratic Party Needs to Change
Last week brought welcome news for those of us looking for some light at the end of the tunnel as we close in on the first year of the Trump era when voters repudiated Republican rule by handing resounding victories to Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere around the country.
While this is clearly a morale booster for beleaguered progressives, let’s hope that it does not stop folks from continuing to ask the hard questions that need to be answered if we truly want to change the course of the country from the dangerous path we are on.
Some of those questions were beginning to be debated with a fresh focus in the wake of Donna Brazile’s revelations about the 2016 campaign in the days leading up to the good electoral news on Tuesday. While most of the coverage belabored the question of whether or not the Democratic primary was “rigged,” what was more important about Brazile’s recounting of her time at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was what she revealed about the culture of the Clinton campaign and the national party. [Read more…]
Readers Write: Another ‘Business As Usual’ Fixer at City Hall Won’t Help the Homeless
By Martha Sullivan / San Diego Housing Emergency Alliance
Longtime mayoral fixer, Kris Michell, returns to San Diego City Hall this week as Deputy Chief Operating Officer. She seems to be Mayor Faulconer’s “Jared,” with a wide-ranging portfolio:
“Michell was announced Sept. 28 as a top city adviser on homelessness, special events, corporate sponsorships, the commission on arts and culture and the city’s redevelopment arm, Civic San Diego.”
Michell returns to City Hall after several years doing much of the same as the head of the Downtown Partnership — the Business Improvement District for downtown. This city-sanctioned partly-funded entity has been a primary tool for persecuting unsheltered San Diegans left with nowhere to live, after the city’s replacement of 10,000 low-income housing units with market-rate/luxury development (mostly downtown) since 2010. This devastation started during her six years as chief of staff for Mayor Jerry Sanders. [Read more…]
Remembering Debbie
Debbie, my first born,
is gone, and now
is but a sweet memory for me
as I mourn.
With tears in my eyes
I reflect on our journey in life together
since she arrived,
seemingly out of the rich blue
of the Tucson skies
on January 4th, 1957,
a wonderful clear and cool
sunny winter day –
when I was but an
eighteen-year-old freshman … [Read more…]
Ta-Nehisi Coates on using/not using the N-word | Video Worth Watching
Words have no meaning without context. Once stated, it seems obvious, but in certain situations this truism appears to be forgotten. During a Family Action Network event with Evanston Township High School while on tour for his newest book, We Were Eight Years In Power, Ta-Nehisi Coates responds to a question from the audience on the issues of the use of the N-word. With examples he reminds us of how we know the importance of context to be true. In his low-key conversational delivery he then extends the analysis to explain the contexts at play in the use of this hot-button vocabulary item. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: November 5-11
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and locally sourced writers on the cruelty towards unsheltered humans, Trumps tax takeover, progressive election wins, the Clean DREAM Act, education in the Trump era, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site. [Read more…]
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