San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Columns / The Starting Line

Will the GOP Send ‘Poor’ ‘Dead’ Duncan Hunter Back to DC to Represent East San Diego County?

by

Now that Congressman Duncan Hunter and wife Margaret have been indicted, Republicans are working hard on formulating a strategy to keep his District 50 seat red.

While the Representative from Alpine has been full of bluster, anybody who’s actually read the 60 counts against him knows he’s a dead man walking. All that’s left for him to do is work out a plea deal that is consummated after November 6. Oh, and hope his wife doesn’t escalate expression of her rage beyond the stony silence on display at their arraignment.

There were about a hundred or so people on hand to witness Hunter walk into the San Diego Federal Courthouse. His dash from the curb to the door was more like a circus parade than a perp walk, as demonstrators from various Indivisible chapters waved signs, wore bunny ears (in honor of the plane tickets purchased for the family’s pet rabbit), and chanted “lock him up.”   [Read more…]

Read Duncan Hunter’s Claims of Innocence Alongside Snippets From the Indictment

by

I give Congressman Duncan and Margaret Hunter credit: They’ve got some kind of nerve.

Hunter’s campaign has published a lengthy statement calling the effort to indict him a “witch-hunt.”

I’ve broken his statement up into small bits, juxtaposed with paragraphs from the 48-page indictment. Sometimes the two pieces are related. Sometimes they’re not. It’s a long, but worthy read. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wonder how this guy looks in the mirror in the morning.

  [Read more…]

Rep. Duncan Hunter Goes Rogue, Refuses to Step Down From House Committee Assignments

by

Bonus: Some Juicy Snips from the Indictment

Congressman Duncan Hunter is refusing to step down from his assignments on the Armed Services, Education, and the Workforce and Transportation committees, according to Politico.

Following the release of a 48-page indictment, House Majority Leader Paul Ryan urged the 50th District Congressman to resign his committee assignments until the matter was resolved.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are now planning to take action to remove Hunter in a steering committee meeting slated for September 4. The full GOP conference is expected to ratify this the following day, and shortly thereafter it will go to the House floor, where it will be made official.
  [Read more…]

Rep. Duncan Hunter Indicted for Diverting Campaign Funds for Personal Use

by

Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret are expected to be arraigned on Thursday morning in Federal court.

A 48-page grand jury indictment accuses the couple of diverting more than $250,000 in campaign funds to family vacations, school tuition, theater tickets and other personal expenses.

They are facing charges of wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy, resulting from a more than year-long investigation by the Department of Justice.   [Read more…]

Cash Bail Goes Away, Reform Flops in California

by

Imagine California’s system for handling people accused of crimes embodied as a statue of bounty hunter Dwayne “ Dog” Chapman. Senate Bill 10 was supposed to make it go away.

What happened instead was the statue was gone, but the base upon which it stood remained intact. As of October 2019, the old system of requiring cash or a bail bondsman’s assurance as a condition for pre-trial release will go away.

I won’t miss the seedy buildings downtown or what they stand for. People with the means to post cash bail get it refunded if they’re found not guilty or the case is dismissed. If you’re not so wealthy, you get stuck with the bondsman’s 10% fee, regardless.   [Read more…]

Trump Endorses in 49th, Russian Hackers in Action. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

by

Republican Diane Harkey, the Darrell Issa-endorsed candidate in the 49th Congressional District received the blessings of President Donald Trump via Twitter late yesterday.

Nobody should be happier about this news than her Democratic opponent, Mike Levin, although his campaign showed remarkable restraint in responding to the announcement.

Polling by the Public Policy Institute of California three months ago showed just 39% of voters in the two counties included in the district approve of the job Trump is doing as president. Hillary Clinton won the 49th by seven points over Trump, and Issa’s re-election margin was the closest of any House incumbent in 2016.
  [Read more…]

Is Bank of America ‘Just Following Orders’ by Asking Citizenship Status Questions?

by

It’s not just ICE and local bigots harassing immigrants and people who they think might be immigrants anymore.

Activists are claiming U.S. financial institutions, encouraged by the Department of Treasury, are including citizenship status as part of the Customer Identification Program provision of the USA Patriot Act, even though it is not legally required.

What this means in practical terms is that existing customers, like Josh Collins and wife Jessica Salazar Collins who thought envelopes from Bank of America were junk mail, are having their accounts suspended until such time as questions about citizenship are answered.
  [Read more…]

California Kids Meal Soda Ban: Would You Like Water, Milk, or Truth With That?

by

If you were anywhere near the State Approved media lately, no doubt you heard about California’s upcoming ban on restaurants serving sodas to children. It must be true because Faux News and The Hill (among others) have made this assertion in headlines.

Except that it’s not true. Today’s headlines are based on an August 16 story in the Sacramento Bee which said no such thing   [Read more…]

Stop Trump’s Supreme Court Choice! #UniteforJustice | Progressive Activist Calendar August 17 – 27, 2018

by

It’s time to make some noise. The fix is on. Republicans have stacked the deck in ways never seen before to enable the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.

On August 26, in more than 100 cities across the country, people will be attending rallies and protests against a nominee with ultra-conservative legal views on a range of issues. He has repeatedly argued the Supreme Court should put the president above the law. Given that Donald Trump is at the center of a criminal investigation he should not be allowed to pick his own judge and jury.

Kavanaugh’s vote on the court would enable reactionary policies on reproductive freedom, health care, the environment, voting rights, workers’ rights, LGBTQ rights, and immigrant rights for generations.   [Read more…]

Editorial Statement: Who Is the Enemy of the People?

by

Today – August 16 – in over three hundred editorials published in newspapers and on media platforms large and small across the country, the American press is standing up and renouncing president Trump’s declarations of the media as “the enemy of the people.”

The San Diego Free Press and the OB Rag join these denunciations, in the call to confront Trump first put out by The Boston Globe, which began its call with:

A central pillar of President Trump’s politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather “the enemy of the people.” This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences. We asked editorial boards from around the country – liberal and conservative, large and small – to join us today to address this fundamental threat in their own words.   [Read more…]

Freedom of the Press, It’s Not Just for Newspapers Anymore

by

More than a hundred publications have responded to The Boston Globe’s call for an editorial response on Thursday to President Donald Trump’s frequent attacks on the news media.

Here is an excerpt from an Associated Press story:

‘‘We are not the enemy of the people,’’ said Marjorie Pritchard, deputy managing editor for the editorial page of The Boston Globe, referring to a characterization of journalists that Trump has used in the past. The president, who contends he has largely been covered unfairly by the press, also employs the term ‘‘fake news’’ often when describing the media.

The Globe has reached out to editorial boards nationwide to write and publish editorials on Aug. 16 denouncing what the newspaper called a ‘‘dirty war against the free press.’’

I really do appreciate the sentiment.

I also have to say “karma, baby.”   [Read more…]

Convention Center, County Voting Initiatives Bode Poorly for Local GOP Leaders

by

Last week was a rough week for the status quo in San Diego. The (mostly) unspoken private-public partnership between land developers and local elected officials couldn’t get it done. Not once, but twice.

A faux ‘citizens initiative’ run by hoteliers, and assorted Mayoral toadies won’t be on the November ballot. Visions of economic growth centered on convention center expansion ended amid finger pointing and raised middle fingers. Grift, incompetence and a failure to understand public weariness with past promises of economic benefits trickling down from the schemes of the rich and famous all played in role in the effort’s spectacular failure.

The days of San Diego County being a Republican enclave may be numbered. A Board of Supervisors’ attempt to deep-six a union-sponsored voting measure made its way back onto the November ballot, thanks to a judge’s ruling affirming that the 100,000+ people who’d signed petitions didn’t do so with the intention of fostering yet another pointless study.
  [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry