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Already Plotting to Unseat Mayor Filner

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By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

I suppose there are women who would do battle to become queen bee but they’re the exception, not the rule. On the other hand, the lineup of San Diego males practicing their back-stabbing techniques to become emperor… potentate… sultan… ruler of the roost… snakes the length of I-805 and back again.

Our local warriors come in different shapes and modes — from the programmed-android Carl DeMaio… to the sybarite Doug Manchester… to the changeling-striver Nathan Fletcher… to the overweening Jan Goldsmith…to the Brutus-clone Todd Gloria (why he’d identify with James Mason instead of Marlon Brando is beyond me).  They’re panting hard at the prospect of unseating the trenchant and obstinate Bob Filner on whose head the crown currently rests.

It’s not even springtime after the 2012 November election but the word is trickling out that 2014 (just around the corner) is the year of choice for a pitched battle to recall Mayor Filner and replace him with one of the above-named self-styled gladiators.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Mayor Crashes Press Conference to Defend City Against Dubious Hotel Deal

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City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s attempted to undercut Mayor Bob Filner’s questioning of the pending hotel tax-but-not-a-tax deal by staging a hastily called press conference yesterday afternoon. Things didn’t work out quite like Goldsmith hoped.

As Goldsmith stood before the assembled media questioning the legality of the Mayor’s proposals, Filner joined the audience, initially sitting in the back row.

After Goldsmith failed to answer a 10News reporter’s questions about whether the City Attorney had offered his legal advice to the Mayor, Filner hijacked the conference by answering “No”. The local media has played up the drama of the situation while largely ignoring (except for the Voice of San Diego) the real issues at stake.

Goldsmith’s intent was. I believe, part of a coordinated effort to bring pressure on Filner   [Read more…]

Author Q & A: ‘The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea’

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Conservationist David Helvarg talks about his book, “The Golden Shore,” a tribute to California’s beautiful and iconic coastline, and the Navy’s and San Diego’s roles in shaping it.

By Serge Dedina / Wildcoast

No one has done more to educate the public on ways to preserve our coast and ocean than David Helvarg. Author of six books and the founder and Executive Director of the Blue Frontier Campaign, Helvarg will be speaking about his newest book, The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea at the Birch Aquarium on Tuesday Feb. 26 from 6:30-8 p.m. Helvarg is also a former San Diegan who wrote for the OB Rag.

Serge Dedina: What is your first memory of the coast in California?

David Helvarg: Flying into San Diego at night to help out some friends in trouble in the Ocean Beach neighborhood and then staying up ’til dawn watching the Pacific lapping on the shore, small breaking wavelets sparkling with silvery luminescence. Two days later there was a concert on Sunset Cliffs. Watching the young OB residents dancing on the beach and wading into the bracing 68-degree water where silky-haired California girls in bikinis were tossing Frisbees, I knew I’d come home to a place I’d never been before.   [Read more…]

Frank Thomas: ‘Do We Have Time to Save Mother Earth?’

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Editor: One of the San Diego Free Press’ most active writers on climate change is Frank Thomas, who often collaborates with John Lawrence. Readers appreciate Thomas so much that a group of them invited him to speak at their “pro-science” club meetings. Problem is, Thomas lives in the Netherlands. Here is his gracious decline along with more expositions on his part, ‘do we have time to save Mother Earth’.

By Frank Thomas

Thank you for trying to reach me through the San Diego Free Press and John Lawrence.

I would much enjoy meeting with members of your pro-science club. But, unfortunately I live in the Netherlands where I’m actively engaged as a free-lance trainer/lecturer and writer. For some time now, I’ve have been researching and writing about macro-micro comparative U.S. and European economic, social, environmental issues. High on my and John Lawrence’s list has been the U.S. and world dependence on environmentally finite and polluting fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions.

One respected researcher on climate change and Arctic greenhouse gas conditions is University of Utah Professor of Physics, Timothy J. Garrett. If you contact him, he may know colleagues in California who are well-informed on this carbon dioxide-methane intensive region. Prof. Garrett sees climate change as a fight between human beings and physics … where the physics of climate change becomes irreversibly deadly unless something is done IMMEDIATELY to drastically reduce GHG emissions worldwide.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Looking Past the Sequester Blame Game

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The world as we know it will end in just nine days.

That’s about the only thing Democrats and Republicans agree about on the subject of the sequester, a kick-the-can-down-the-road budget deal that’s come due.

The GOP has decided to dig in their heels and allow billions in automatic cuts to domestic and Pentagon spending kick in March 1st. Their issue seems to be preventing the closing of tax loopholes mostly used by the very wealthy.

Democrats, led by President Obama, are taking to airwaves to warn of doom and gloom. Locally Congressman Scott Peters has led the charge, predicting dire economic impacts on jobs and basic government services.

 Today I’ll attempt to explore some of the notions surrounding this would-be fiscal Armageddon. I can’t claim to be non-partisan, nor do I want to be. But I know what bullshit smells like no matter what kind of bovine creature is dispensing it.   [Read more…]

Why Democrats and Republicans Are Both Wrong About the Economy

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The unemployment rate is 7.8%. Both parties agree that this is too high, but they propose totally different solutions to create more jobs. The Republican solution is to give more tax breaks and other advantages to the rich and to corporations because they are the job creators.

Really? Then why haven’t they created more jobs in the last 30 years. This historical experiment of “trickle down” economics has been tried since the time of Ronald Reagan and it has proven to be an abject failure. Yet Republicans are still pushing it as the solution to all our problems.

Esteemed Nobel laureate and Princeton professor Paul Krugman wants to take the traditional Keynesian approach and do deficit spending to improve the economy. He says there’s no reason to worry about the deficit since the US can borrow money at extremely low rates. Not to worry. He sides with Dick Cheney who famously said, “Deficits don’t matter.”

Cheney and Bush then went on to add trillions to the national debt by fighting two unpaid for wars, tax breaks for the rich and an unpaid for prescription drug benefit for seniors that was in reality a giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies. But now that a Democratic President is in office, Republicans are all worried about deficits. They should have been worried when George W Bush was doing the profligate spending.

However, I disagree with both Cheney and Krugman. Deficits do matter and here’s why:   [Read more…]

Covered California Introduces Standard Plans

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by Anthony Wright/ California Progress Report

On Wednesday, February 13, Covered California unveiled a new website, its new social media presence and, in particular, the new benefit designs that this marketplace will offer in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act to help California consumers get coverage more easily and affordably.

California has led the way in realizing the promise of “Obamacare” – being first to set up such an exchange where consumers will be able to conveniently shop for quality, affordable health insurance that meets federal guidelines and where many people will be able to receive subsidies (100% federally subsidized) to help pay for coverage.

The standardization of health plans is a breakthrough for consumers, who will now be able to make apples-to-apples comparisons that are virtually impossible in today’s market. Consumers trying to buy health coverage today face a complex and confusing experience, including fear of the fine print. The standardization of benefit designs will make it easier for consumers to compare health plans. It will force insurers to compete on cost and quality and customer service, rather than consumer confusion.   [Read more…]

An Invitation to Rick Perry to Come Back to California

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by Angie Wei/California Labor Federation

You have to feel a little bad for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He came all the way to California this week to “poach jobs” and left empty-handed. Maybe Perry hasn’t read the studies that show very few jobs move from California to other states. Or maybe he wasn’t aware that California is on the rebound in a big way, now leading the nation in job creation. At the end of the day, Perry’s trip really was all hat, no cattle.

Over the last week, there’s been a lot of silly media coverage comparing Texas to California. It’s almost like a sports rivalry at this point. Perry says his low-regulation, low-government service, low-wage economic model is the way to go.

As a native Texan, I know better. I still remember going to the beach in Galveston and having to use turpentine to clean my feet before I left because of the oil. And I know being a worker in Texas is no joy, either. Workers have few rights. Collective bargaining is rare. If you’re injured on the job, tough luck. Texas is dead last in workers’ compensation coverage. Health insurance is hard to come by. Wages are low, and as a result, poverty is high. The Rick Perry fairy tale of Texas being an oasis is nothing more than a Texas-sized lie.

But we think Rick Perry ought to come back. Yep, you read that correctly. We should invite Perry back to California with open arms.   [Read more…]

Peters Focuses Consequences of Sequester on San Diego

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Sequestration deal agreed to in 2011 could have devastating effects on the San Diego economy.

Representative Scott Peters is back home in San Diego. A rather irritated Scott Peters. “I love being here in San Diego, and by the way it’s 20 some degrees in Washington, D.C. This is a nice place to be. But I really ought to be at work as we get two weeks away from the sequester,” he said, expressing his frustration that the Republican leadership in the House had declared a recess for this week.

As of March 1st, the sequestration deal that was struck at the end of 2011 between President Obama and the Republicans will kick in—a deal that was never intended to be actually implemented.

Back in December, 2011, the federal government was coming up against the debt ceiling. It’s usually a routine matter to raise it in order to allow the government to borrow money in order to meet its financial obligations. It’s important to note that we’re not talking about borrowing for new spending, but to repay debts already incurred.   [Read more…]

Tunnels Under San Diego’s 30 Foot Height Limit in the Coastal Zone – Part 2

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At the risk of encouraging the critics of the height limit by continuing the discussion of the effects and value of the 1972 citizens’ initiative, this is meant then to demonstrate to those same critics the tunnels that have already been dug in and around and under the 30 foot standard, as well as informing the fairly new generations of citizenry and those uninitiated observers of San Diego development.

Height limit MB monsterIn Part One, I discussed how some of these tunnels have been dug underneath the height limit on San Diego’s coastal areas over the decades, outlining several serious breaches of the seemingly sacrosanct restrictions on building heights. Feeling that the ongoing online discussion on the issue with Voice of San Diego (see part 1) wasn’t complete without some kind of acknowledgement of how tunnels have already been dug under the 30 foot limit.
  [Read more…]

A Helping Hand to a Needy Group

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When my husband was alive, he belonged to a wonderful organization entitled “Veteran’s for Peace.” As the title suggests, the group was made up of veteran’s from many “conflicts” and they all had one purpose – “Peace.”

Although not a member myself, I am still on the VFP mailing list and received this message today that I would like to share with you. The world for veterans today is so bleak; the feelings about the homeless population is shameful in so many areas that this report may shed a light on what is happening in our world today.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Big Hotels to Mayor Filner: ‘We Want Our Money, We Stole it Fair and Square.’

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So the Big Local News story today over at the UT-San Diego is that city’s hoteliers have decided to sue Mayor Bob Filner.

It seems as though our Mayor has decided not play nice with the hotels, refusing to sign off on a deal that would hand them more than $1 billion in tax revenues to do with as they see fit over the next four decades.

These ‘hospitality’ businesses decided to collect these taxes and allocate the money without involving local citizens. The logic behind this maneuver is that hotel taxes are paid by tourists, not locals, so voter approval is not required.

All this was done by our former mayor and a council scared to death of being labeled as ‘anti-business’. Our elected representatives don’t even get a say as to who sits on the board that doles out this money.   [Read more…]

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