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The Starting Line – The Battle for America’s Youth: Guns, God and High Stakes Testing

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“Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”

The New York Times kicked off a series of investigative articles yesterday examining the gun industry’s influence and the wide availability of firearms in America.  First up in the investigation: a look at industry/NRA marketing aimed at young people.

Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children.

The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.

Inside: Guns Get Religion, Filner Gets Spun, McCain Flips (or is it flops?)   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Immigration Reform Rises to the Top of the Congressional (And Local) Do List

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Spurred on by President Obama’s inaugural promises and by GOP fears that the changing make up of the electorate will doom the party’s future, immigration reform legislation is likely to take a high profile in the coming weeks. The President is pushing for a comprehensive plan; Republicans want piecemeal reform.

Here in San Diego, the immigration issue has moved to center stage this week. A group calling itself the San Diego Table on Immigration Policy staged a press conference this week featuring local activist groups along with high profile local leaders, including Mayor Filner, City Councilman David Alvarez and labor leader Lorena Gonzalez. They’re promoting pathways to citizenship, a safer border and opportunities to allow legal migration into the U.S. and calling for legislative action to fix the current immigration system.

Meanwhile, the rightist gang that’s thus far blocked action on this issue is rallying its troops.

More Inside: GOP Voting Plans, Obamacare Scares, Bikers’ Plans and I Say Something Nice About a Republican…   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Desperation on the Right: Where is All This Extreme Rhetoric Going?

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Having lost the November elections and (for the time being) the vaunted fiscal cliff budget/debt ceiling showdown, GOP politicians are acting increasingly frantic.  Polls show that public support for the party and its policies is continuing to drop.

Is this behavior simply irrational venting or is it a desperate attempt to stir up acts outside the normal bounds of the political process?

Exhibit A today is House Speaker John Boehner, who told a group of Republicans on Tuesday he believes the primary goal of President Obama’s second term is to “annihilate the Republican Party.” From The Hill:

“Given what we heard yesterday about the president’s vision for his second term, it’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans,” Boehner said in a speech Tuesday to The Ripon Society. “So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party.

“And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal — to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”

  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – California Tobacco Taxes on the Agenda for 2014

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A group that includes Ca. Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom is backing an initiative for the mid-term elections to add $1 per pack to the state tobacco tax, and use the money for college scholarships and financial aid.

An early version of the initiative filed last month indicates revenues with be directed exclusively through the California Student Aid Commission. Monies, as much a $750 in its first year, would be kept separate from the state’s general fund.

Supporters of the tax are optimistic about their chances, pointing out the relatively low level of the existing tax, the narrow margin of the vote on Proposition 29 in 2012, and the fact this measure will avoid a fight not over bureaucracy and research by channeling the proceeds to college tuitions.

Inside: More Gunnutia, Earth Day Update, Corruption on Wall Street….   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Looking Back on When San Diego Said ‘No’ to Honoring Martin Luther King

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The year was 1986, and San Diego, like much of the nation, was swept up in a national discussion about a new holiday commemorating MLK’s contribution to US history. Legislation (signed three years earlier) making Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday was going into effect, and many cities around the country were honoring the slain civil rights leader by naming streets and buildings after him.

It seemed like a no-brainer for the San Diego City Council, then led by Mayor Maureen O’Connor. After some deliberation they announced that Market Street would be renamed Martin Luther King Way.

The reaction of merchants along Market Street, spurred on by developers eyeing redevelopment possibilities, was strongly negative. Claiming that they’d been excluded from the decision making process, they organized the Keep Market Street Initiative Committee and delivered nearly eighty thousand signatures to the city clerk, a move that put the question, eventually known as Proposition F, on the November ballot.

Black community leaders felt that the impetus behind the campaign was racism, pure and simple.
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Obama’s Second Term: Will Reactionaries Turn the Dream into a Nightmare?

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It was a busy weekend, chock full of news. President Obama took the oath of office Sunday, as required (today’s festivities are merely a show), hundreds of thousands of American participated in Days of Service, tens of thousands of guns rights-types rallied for Guns Across America/Gun Appreciation Day, five people were killed in New Mexico by a teenager wielding a semi-automatic rifle and five gun enthusiasts were wounded by accidental discharges of firearms at guns shows around the country.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Shooting Down False Arguments About Gun Control, Starting With the UT-San Diego Editorial Board

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Clearly these guys at UT-San Diego can’t read. The local daily runs an editorial on gun laws and can’t even get their facts straight. Why? Because they obviously can’t comprehend a simple press release.

Here’s what the UT-San Diego said, trying to shore up their gun control arguments with numbers:

While a new Gallup poll shows support for tougher gun laws has increased to 38 percent, the same poll shows 48 percent of Americans like laws as they are or want them loosened.

Except that’s NOT what the Gallup poll said.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – 24 Things San Diegans Can Do to Honor the Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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“The time is always right to do what’s right.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

It has been twenty seven years since the first federal holiday marking the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King was observed. Like all good things, establishment of this commemorative day didn’t come without a serious effort. It wasn’t officially observed in all 50 states until 2000.

The movement for a holiday honoring Dr. King began as a union demand in contract negotiations. Congressman John Conyers introduced a bill four days after the assassination in 1968 to make the slain leader’s birthday a national holiday.

The bill would likely have died in committee, and stayed buried, had it not been for thousands of working-class Americans–most of them black, but also white, Asian and Latino–who risked their jobs over the next fifteen years to demand the right to honor a man they viewed as a working-class hero.

For those of us lucky enough to be able to celebrate holidays, this coming weekend is (or should be) different. I’ve combed through local listings in an attempt to create a comprehensive and easy to use guide for people who wish to honor the memory of Dr. King through community service and celebrations. There are activities listed here for people spanning all levels of physical ability, age and political persuasion. You can sign up for many of them with a mere click of the mouse.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Doctor, Doctor! Give Me the News! Mayor Bob’s Cure for the Urban Blues

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There were a flock of SD Free Press writers at the Balboa Theater last night for Mayor Bob Filner’s first State of the City speech. I’m sure that we’ll provide a variety of viewpoints and plenty of detail as the week goes on. So I’ll skip the details in my report this morning.

I chose to understand Dr. Bob’s speech as a healing moment. He reached out. He promised progress. He didn’t demonize anybody or incite fear to talk about hard choices.

Filner’s metaphor of the City as a healing patient was spot on. What impressed me most was his bedside manner. Bob Filner didn’t have to share the spotlight with Nathan Fletcher, the City Council, the first lady, and the citizens he honored for their public service last night.

But he did. Together, San Diegans can build a great future. Divided, we’ll be going nowhere.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Life in the Slow Lane: San Diegans Spend More Time on the Road than Angelenos

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The Equinox Center, a local think tank focusing on quality of life issues, is expected to release its 2013 Quality of Life Dashboard report for the region on Thursday, January, 17th. A sneak peak at this year’s findings, first reported by Michael Chen of 10News, gives a glimpse into the realities of San Diego from behind the wheel.

The Sustainable San Diego Blog reports on their findings:

 **On average we travel more miles every day than the average Californian.

(San Diego numbers remain higher than Los Angeles County’s, at an average of 12.8 miles per day compared to 10.7 in LA.  More residents of LA take public transit (6.2%) to commute to work compared to San Diego (3.0%)).

**After 4 years of decline, the average San Diegan now spends nearly 40 hours per year sitting in traffic – that’s a full work week.

BREAKING NEWS: Official Drinking Game for State of the City address by Mayor available here. Remember, it’s a school night. (h/t @RachelLaing)   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Mayor Bob ‘Teflon’ Filner’s Awesome Adventures

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One month into his term, San Diego’s newly elected Mayor was seemingly up sh*t’s creek without a paddle.

The local press was hounding him. He’d failed to cough up a list of administration appointees on demand, technically violating California’s Public Records Act.  A dust up between Filner and City Council President Todd Gloria lead to a UT-San Diego editorial calling the Mayor a bully. And an appearance before a group supporting access for medical marijuana patients had the twitterati convinced that he’d committed a grave political sin.

Here it is a week later and it’s all coming up roses for Mayor Bob. Talk about your political Teflon.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Junior Seau Autopsy Confirms Brain Damage: Is this the Beginning of the End for Pro-Football?

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Former San Diego Charger Junior Seau was suffering from chronic brain damage when he committed suicide, according to reports on ESPN/ABC news this morning. The deceased linebacker’s brain was examined by researchers with the National Institute of Health (NIH) who concluded he was afflicted with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease that can lead to dementia, memory loss and depression.

Seau’s ex-wife told ESPN that the family was informed the disease resulted from “a lot of head-to-head collisions over the course of 20 years of playing in the NFL. And that it gradually, you know, developed the deterioration of his brain and his ability to think logically.”

INSIDE: Carl DeMaio: He’s Baaack, The Science of Trolls, Did the AIG Lawsuit Have Merit?   [Read more…]

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