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Barrio Logan Group Faces an Uphill Battle Trying to Stop Shipbuilder Scam

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By Doug Porter

Superior Court Jeffrey Barton will hear from the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) seeking a temporary restraining order aimed at stopping a referendum overturning the Barrio Logan Community Plan.  EHC and community supporters are saying signatures were fraudulently gathered on petitions submitted by the Protect Our Jobs Committee, a group created by shipyard repair companies.

The coalition has submitted affidavits from witnesses claiming petition gatherers were not truthful about the community plan’s details.  News media accounts and videos caught paid signature gatherers claiming the US Navy would leave San Diego should the community plan be implemented.

Posted around shopping centers in areas of the city where residents were likely to be unaware of the past history of callous disregard of health hazards by funders of the Protect Our Jobs group, voters were also told that 46,000 jobs were at stake and that the purpose of the plan was to allow developers to build condominiums in the area.   [Read more…]

A Tale of Two Cities: North and South of Interstate 8

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By Doug Porter

It’s been touted as fact of life in San Diego politics: the electorate south of Interstate 8 votes heavily Democratic while those on the north side votes Republican.

After all, the northern part of San Diego is generally wealthier, older and whiter than the city’s southern half.  Even as the GOP’s partisan advantage in the city has disappeared in recent years, the party’s candidates and causes have done well, leading to the general perception that the electorate in the regions favors conservative causes.

A succession of Republican Mayors and a track record for mostly voting with that party’s positions on initiatives re-enforce that perception.  It’s a commonly accepted view in news media accounts; a local report on this weeks special election taps National University’s “policy analyst” Vince Vasquez, who says “You see that deep geographic divide among voters. It’s something not going away. If anything its more pronounced,” –

But not everything is as it seems.   [Read more…]

Labor’s Ground Game Made the Difference in Alvarez Win

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By Doug Porter

Mayoral candidate David Alvarez isn’t taking the victory laps today on the morning talk shows. He can’t.  He completely lost his voice talking to voters as the special election neared.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting this morning, Faulconer received 89,043 votes, Alvarez 52,283 votes, and Fletcher 49,645 votes. There remain as many as 34,500 mail and provisional ballots still to be counted.  By shortly after 10pm last night Alvarez had moved into second place and his lead grew throughout the night.

What little life was left in his vocal chords was expended as he thanked supporters last night at a rally held in the old Weber bakery building in the heart of the neighborhood he came from.    [Read more…]

Looking Back at Our Special Election Coverage: Sixty One Articles by Sixteen Writers

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By Doug Porter

The email said: “You have lost me”.

The reader was presumably upset by an interview with Nathan Fletcher posted a few days ago. After posting five dozen articles by sixteen different writers, this conversation with one of the major Democratic candidates was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

So today as people have their final opportunity to cast their ballots, I thought that taking a look back over our coverage might be useful.  If you haven’t voted this might prove useful.  If you have voted, good for you; send this story to a friend who might not have voted.

Mostly this column will be about short quotes and links to the articles. I strongly encourage you to click through to the original stories early and often. In case the words “Progressive Views” on the top of the page have somehow eluded you, SDFP has (and encourages) a certain point of view. We’d rather be honest about that fact than try to delude you as is the standard in much of the mainstream media.   [Read more…]

What Happens If [Fill-in the Candidate’s Name] Wins the Runoff Mayoral Election?

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By Doug Porter

There will be two winners come Wednesday morning, since nobody outside of GOP Bossman Tony Krvaric’s opium dreams thinks any candidate will win more than fifty percent of the vote.  The accepted wisdom is that City Councilman Kevin Faulconer, a Republican who’d like voters to forget about that fact, will take “first place.”

Faulconer would prefer that we ignore the sources of his cash, since voter registration in San Diego is tilted in favor of the Democratic Party.  The local GOP is currently less popular than even Congress, with a mere 3% of newly registered voters willing to affiliate themselves with the Party of Lincoln.

What we’re really voting on is who makes it to the runoff election, which will take place at sometime in February… Or maybe March, depending on when this round’s votes are certified.

And it’s that runoff election I’ll be talking about today, in the hopes you’ll be further inspired to vote this time around. (Did I mention yet how important it is to vote?)   [Read more…]

Scott Peters Joins GOP’s 47th Effort to Scuttle Obamacare

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…the hilariously hypocritical attempt by Republicans to “fix” a law that everybody knows they would much prefer to burn on the steps of the Capitol while eating great balls of hashish and doing a frenzied goat-dance with their faces painted purple. 

By Doug Porter

Representative Scott Peters, who represents California’s 52nd Congressional District, is a moderate Democrat determined to prove to his borderline Republican district that he can play the bi-partisan game.

I get that. It’s just that you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. And Obamacare is that place.

Peters chose on Friday to join with House Republicans in passing legislation proposed by Rep. Fred Upton (R.-MI) that House Speaker John Boehner characterizes as a step towards repealing the Affordable Care Act.  Others call it the 47th vote to repeal Obamacare.   [Read more…]

National Security Agency’s Secret Role in City Heights Somali Case Upheld by Judge

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By Doug Porter

 U.S. District Court Federal Judge Jeffrey Miller denied a motion yesterday that would have granted a new trial for four Somali men convicted of aiding terrorists.

At the heart of their appeal were defense assertions that evidence collected by the National Security Agency violated the Fourth Amendment Rights of the defendants.

You might think this was an open and shut case: the government’s “big ears” caught some bad guy terrorists and they were brought to justice. But you’d be wrong.

The implications of this case go far beyond the common media portrayal of some African immigrants wiring money to a shady militia back home.   [Read more…]

Basta! Barrio Logan Group Files Lawsuit Citing Illegal Signatures on Referendum Petition

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By Doug Porter

The stories have been circulating for weeks about simply outrageous falsehoods being told by signature gatherers employed by backers of a referendum to overturn the Barrio Logan Community plan. Now community members, led by the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC), are fighting back.

The three biggest lies being told are:

  • 46,000 jobs were endangered
  • Businesses were going to be replaced by condominiums
  • The Navy would abandon San Diego

This morning they filed legal documents seeking to block any referendum on the basis that organizers deliberately made misrepresentations in order to gather signatures.   [Read more…]

RIP Immigration Reform 2013

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By Doug Porter

Despite passage of a bill by the Senate, a sustained campaign by activists around the country, and the commitment of the White House to make it happen, the consensus on Capitol Hill is that comprehensive immigration reform will not be voted on by the House of Representatives this year.

Republican and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy told immigration advocates who were protesting outside his residence last week there is simply not enough time left for action on any bill in 2013. As of today there are just 15 legislative days left on the House calendar for 2013.

Any comprehensive package is dead in the water because House Speaker John Boehner has refused to allow a vote on it unless 150 members of the GOP caucus give their blessing.  House members have indicated they prefer a piecemeal approach, but none of those proposals are likely to make it to the floor.   [Read more…]

Congressman Darrell Issa’s Obstruction of Obamacare Website Fixes Under Fire

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By Doug Porter

Once again, Vista’s GOP Congressman Darrell Issa is proving to the country that he’d rather be on the evening news than actually do any work in Washington DC.

Issa is so eager to get to the bottom of the Healthcare.gov “scandal” that he’s willing to stop the people working to fix it so he can grab a few headlines. After all, he’s got to do something in light of his Benghazi and IRS investigations going nowhere.

This week he wants answers directly from White House Chief of Technology Todd Park, who already responded positively to an earlier request to appear, and he wants them Now.   [Read more…]

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith Get Some Much Needed Scrutiny

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By Doug Porter

The people’s prosecutors.

They’re chosen by voters in both San Diego City and County and charged with the responsibility of protecting our interests. Today we’ll look at recent news accounts suggesting there’s much to be desired in assessing the job performance of County DA Bonnie Dumanis and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith.

I’ll also recap developments in the mayoral race (new poll results!) including a young union organizer reading Nathan Fletcher the riot act, a high profile endorsement of David Alvarez that compares him to Jackie Robinson, and a gaggle of of young Republicans from around the state taking to the streets for “super candidate” Kevin Faulconer…   [Read more…]

Face Up to It, San Diego is a Beta Project for All-Seeing Law Enforcement

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By Doug Porter

Facial recognition technology developed for battlefield use in Afghanistan and Iraq is getting its first major domestic field test right here in San Diego County.  A report by the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), based on documents obtained by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) through a California Public Records Act request, spells out the parameters of this endeavor.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is coordinating a program involving twenty five local state and federal agencies in the region using a vast data sharing program called the Automated Regional Justice Information System. Participants include U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, San Diego State University and the San Diego Unified School District Police.

Utilizing tablet and android cell phone technologies, law enforcement officers are snapping photographs of individuals they encounter and running them through databases that include 32 million driver’s license photos.  The system can quickly match images with the 1.4 million arrest mug shots in the San Diego County system.   [Read more…]

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