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Op-Ed on the Status of the Select Committee on Homelessness

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By Chris Ward

When I took office two years ago, San Diego’s urban core neighborhoods were in the midst of a homelessness crisis with no clear strategy to tackle the issue. My top priority has been improving our response to this devastating crisis, but one Councilmember can’t do it alone.

Building on successful approaches in other cities and national best practices, I outlined ideas and policies for a holistic response, and working with my colleagues, we’ve made important progress to increase funding, expand life-saving supportive services, and house our homeless.   [Read more…]

The Day After Tomorrow – Joan Baez (Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan cover) | Video Worth Watching

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The inimitable Joan Baez presenting her plaintive interpretation of the Waits/Brennan anti-war song “The Day After Tomorrow”. (h/t to mic)   [Read more…]

As Critics Obsess Over Her Finances, Ocasio-Cortez Urges Media to Focus on Issue ‘Actually Worth Airtime’: Low-Wage Jobs

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“While we’re discussing personal finances,” says newly-elected progressive, “Trump’s tax dodges represent millions of dollars taken from schoolchildren, teachers, firehouses, senior centers, and more.”

By Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continued to shoot back at those who draw attention to—and criticize—the amount in her savings account by calling for coverage instead of far more worthy issues—the nation’s pervasive low-wage jobs and President Donald Trump’s “public theft”—and accusing some sitting congresspeople of lashing out at her because they are blinded by privilege, and thus unable to represent their constituents.   [Read more…]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez On Her Plans In Congress | Video Worth Watching

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Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s All In talks with congressional representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, at 29, the youngest person to serve in Congress. He shares some of her Instagram posts from D.C.; gets her take on the letter opposing Nancy Pelosi’s run for Majority Speaker signed by 16 democrats; and discusses her relationship with Justice Democrats and the need to engage the community in political process.   [Read more…]

Get To Know Your Changing Congressional Body | More Video Worth Watching

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The Stephen Colbert crew use the Public Service Announcement format to poke some fun at the current Congress. They note that “Your Congressional body is almost 240 years old now and it’s going through some changes … ”   [Read more…]

One Veteran’s Dream – Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘War In Reverse’ | More Video Worth Watching

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Kurt Vonnegut’s experience of surviving the fire-bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war provided a fundamental component of the raw material for his novel “Slaughterhouse Five”. In this video Vonnegut reads a passage from the novel accompanied by remarkable imagery using archival footage in an unconventional way and suggests how Vonnegut may have longed for that history to have been rewritten.

(BTW, today, November 11th, is Vonnegut’s birthday. He would have been 96.)   [Read more…]

Armistice 11.11.1918 by Philip Wilby | Video Worth Watching

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From the Nidd Chorale YouTube web page:

Nidd Chorale commissioned this anthem from the renowned composer Philip Wilby, to commemorate the centenary of the ending of World War I. The words were specially written by choir member, and former Master of the Royal Armouries, Guy Wilson who has had much of his poetry set by Phil, including the choir’s last commission Spring Madrigals. The inspiration for the words came from soldiers’ letters written from the front to family members in Nidderdale, North Yorkshire where the choir is based.

  [Read more…]

Veterans to Set Up ‘Hometown Arlington West’ Memorial on Saturday

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By Gil Field / San Diego Veterans for Peace

On Saturday, November 10th, 2018 (Veterans Day), the San Diego Veterans For Peace will be setting up its respected “Hometown Arlington West Memorial” on the front lawn of the USS Midway Museum, 910 N. Harbor Drive, near the corner of Broadway, in downtown San Diego. Chapter veterans from all five services will be honoring our 300+ fallen brothers and sisters from Southern California who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with special memorial markers. The public is asked to stop by, read their names, honor the ultimate sacrifice made by these local fallen veterans, and to reflect on the overall costs of these two ongoing wars.   [Read more…]

Legislating a Just Transition off Fossil Fuels: San Diego Champions Lead on Climate and Energy Policies

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By Gladys Limon / Executive Director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance

Californians are united in our commitment to transitioning the state’s power grid to renewable energy. A strong step in that direction was the passage of SB 100 (De León) into law, which sets a goal of transforming our state’s electricity grid to zero-carbon sources by 2045, with an upgrade to the 2030 goal from 50 percent renewables to 60 percent.

Many California cities, including San Diego, Del Mar, and Chula Vista have set their city targets at 100 percent renewable by 2035.

Now, the real work begins: equitably implementing the transition. We need follow-up state and city regulations to ensure that the communities overburdened by fossil-fuel pollution and climate change impacts have ready access to the economic and public health benefits of this transition.   [Read more…]

It’s Been a Big Year for Transportation, More Needs to Be Done | Readers Write

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By Mona Rios

It’s been a big year for transportation in the San Diego region. Major transit lines have opened up, the public has been exploring new transportation technologies, and our transportation governing agencies have been overhauled for the better.

The year started with a bang as Assembly Bill 805 went into effect in January. This bill, authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher and signed by Governor Jerry Brown, brought needed changes to the Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). It’s made our agencies more democratic, more representative of voters, and it provided more oversight of our tax dollars.

At MTS, it required the chairperson to be a democratically-elected official. The Board of MTS selected city of San Diego Councilmember Georgette Gomez as Chairperson and myself as Vice Chair. It’s been an honor to serve National City and the region as Vice Chair of MTS.

  [Read more…]

14 Million People Are On the Brink Of Starvation In Yemen | Video Worth Watching

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From the MSNBC YouTube website:

14 million people are on the brink of starvation in Yemen, but the U.S. can avert disaster if it stops supporting the Saudi war atrocities in Yemen.

  [Read more…]

Up to 14,000 Active-Duty Troops to Deploy as Trump-Ordered Racist ‘Caravan’ Campaign Prop

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Daily Kos

It’s unclear just why the Trump administration is so absolutely insistent that refugees with the well-established right to seek asylum in this nation are an existential danger, but—oh, wait, it’s not unclear at all. They’re rancid racists who have been stoking anti-immigrant, anti-refugee fear as an existential danger to this country solely as cheap electoral theater; now we are learning that ploy will include up to 14,000 active-duty U.S. military troops, many of them armed, to be deployed to the border to intercept a caravan of unarmed men, women, and children.   [Read more…]

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