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The Starting Line— DeMaio Campaign Tactic Backfires, US Atty Under Investigation as Calls for Resignation Mount

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It all started with “a staff member” from Carl DeMaio’s mayoral campaign leaking an email from U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy, who was unhappy with Congressman Bob Filner for lashing out in response to attacks by the City Councilman, who had just re-stated his oft disproved claims about Filner’s pension.

This ‘leak’ was to be yet another salvo in a last ditch campaign to portray Filner as too unreasonable and hostile to be Mayor of San Diego. Instead, it’s blown up in his face. Questions about whether Duffy was in violation of the Hatch Act, which restricts the activities of government employees in partisan political campaigns, are now at the forefront of the controversy.

Now this action by the DeMaio campaign has led to calls for the U.S. Attorney to resign and a review of her actions by Justice Department officials   [Read more…]

Elect Bob Filner Mayor of San Diego

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The 2012 San Diego mayoral race is quite possibly the most important in this city’s history. It is a choice between two very different candidates with two nearly completely divergent visions of what this city’s future looks like.

It is a choice between one candidate who believes government should function merely to facilitate business and corporate interests, and another who believes that government’s job is to represent the best interests of the people.   [Read more…]

Scott Peters for Congress

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On Nov. 6, San Diego voters will have the opportunity to choose between Republican incumbent Congressman Brian Bilbray, or his Democratic challenger, Port Commissioner and former City Council President Scott Peters. The differences between the candidates are stark, and their leadership will no doubt have a profound effect on San Diego’s future.

To us at the OB Rag and San Diego Free Press the choice is an obvious one: Scott Peters.   [Read more…]

Bilbray Skips Out on Scheduled Debate

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With his opponent Brian Bilbray a no show, Scott Peters makes his case to the Ocean Beach Town Council.

Congressional candidates Scott Peters and Brian Bilbray were scheduled to square off in front of the Ocean Beach Town Council last night as a part of the council’s Candidates Forum, but apparently someone forgot to inform Mr. Bilbray. Instead, Democrat Scott Peters held the floor to answer questions from the audience.

It was noted that the council had invited Mr. Bilbray, and that he and his campaign had confirmed that he would attend. No explanation was given for his absence.

“I want to cut costs to save the program,” Peters said when asked about the attack ads by his opponent regarding his stance on Medicare. “Mr. Bilbray has voted to cut benefits and end the program.” He said that savings in Medicare can be achieved by allowing the government to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, which it currently by law cannot do; by reducing fraud and overbilling; electronic record keeping that will help increase efficiencies; and taking it from “a sick care system to a healthcare system that incentivizes prevention.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Voting Rights; Don’t Take Them for Granted

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In case you haven’t noticed, San Diego Free Press has a terrific story up here about local efforts at “Poll Watching” underway via the Election Integrity Project and True The Vote, organizations with connections to the Tea Party movement. Our citizen journalists have been ‘watching the watchers’ over the past few months.

It’s pretty obvious from reading their materials that the underlying idea behind these ‘watchers’ is voter intimidation of certain classes of people that they have deemed to be suspicious. In practice—despite claims to the contrary—this has generally meant people of color, students, and other groups whose voting history runs counter to the conservative cause.

Despite promises from True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht earlier this year to recruit and train a million volunteers to watch the polls, the group has fallen far short of that goal. For example, Election Integrity Maryland has only about 200 recruits. Nevada Clean Up the Vote has about 700. And our SDFP observers also report a sharp decline in volunteer participation in local efforts More Inside…

Also: LA Mass Transit Exploring San Diego Link, Encinitas’ Parents Still Threatening Legal Action Over Yoga Classes

  [Read more…]

Pacific Beach or “Pee Beach”: Common Sense – You drink a lot, you pee a lot.

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By Sub-Committee

Thank God for the recent rains (and I mean that, God) because Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach after 6 rainless months smelled like a dirty toilet. After the heavenly cleaning, the sidewalks are much brighter and even the scraped off vomit stains are slightly improved, and most of all it cut down on the underlying stench. It is not God’s fault that all the filth washed right down the storm drains 5,4,3,2,1 blocks to dump right on the beautiful sandy beaches of Pacific Beach, it is our fault.

Y’all understand that you shouldn’t really go swimming in the ocean after a rain because of unsanitary microbes, right? I would go so far as to say, don’t be touching the sand in the drain pipe areas either if you know what’s good for you and your children.

Welcome to Pacific Beach, or Pee Beach as we have begun calling it around here.   [Read more…]

Paranoia at the Polls: The San Diego Election Integrity Project’s Troubling “Evidence”

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The Election Integrity Project, although it defines itself as non-partisan, operates as a platform for the conservative Heritage Foundation, the right wing Breitbart.com, and the Tea Party groups True the Vote and the non-profit iCaucus. Their website raises the ubiquitous fearful specter of voter fraud; their intent is to police the act of voting itself, to assure that “every lawfully cast vote [is] accurately counted.”

While the restrictive voter laws enacted after the Republicans gained power in 2010 have the impact if not the explicit intent to suppress the vote of communities of color, the young and the elderly who tend to vote Democrat, True the Vote and its offshoots not only support those efforts but have also assumed the role of election vigilantes at the polls and registrar offices.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line –San Diego Mayoral Education Debate Fails to Advance USD Power Play on Schools

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There have been so many debates between City Councilman Carl DeMaio and Congressman Bob Filner that even an earnest politico like myself has become inured to them. DeMaio and Filner have circled around each other like snarling cats, making lots of noise but not really inflicting much damage. One candidate sneers. The other becomes combative. And so forth.

So it comes as a real shocker that these aspirants actually agreed on something, rising above the partisan fray at a University of San Diego debate last night to concur that the job of Mayor in San Diego does Not include expanding the power of that office to oversee city schools. And the debate must have been a real disappointment for USD’s Center for Education and Law Policy (CEPAL) which has tried repeatedly to sell local policy makers and voters on the idea that undermining the power of an elected school board was the only way to ‘save’ San Diego Schools.

One local reporter Tweeted this characterization of the debate: “Moderator: Do you support mayoral control of schools? Candidates: No. Moderator: But c’mon, do you support mayoral control of schools?”   [Read more…]

Nancy Reagan, where art thou?

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by Norma Damashek/NumbersRunner

Picture a totem pole. Now visualize our regional law enforcers — the city attorney, police chief, sheriff, and district attorney — stacked head-to-foot up the length of the pole. Atop them all you’ll find the U.S. Attorney.  

The name of San Diego’s U.S. Attorney is Laura Duffy. Laura who?

As the U.S. Attorney for the San Diego region, Laura Duffy has the job of investigating and prosecuting violations of federal criminal law, such as political corruption, tax evasion, drug trafficking, human trafficking, organized crime, and so on.

U.S. Attorneys are instructed to steer clear of partisan politics — local, state, or national. It’s the law.

But last week, San Diego’s U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy engaged in a series of activities that directly affected and advanced the political aspirations of mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio.   [Read more…]

Lawsuit Challenges Massive Expansion of San Diego Landfill

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from the Center for Biological Diversity

Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit this week challenging the city of San Diego’s decision to triple the amount of garbage that can be processed daily at the Sycamore Landfill and allow operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The lawsuit, filed by Preserve Wild Santee, the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Chaparral Institute, is aimed at protecting people and wildlife, and encouraging a transition toward more sustainable and efficient solid-waste processing. Left unchallenged, the Sycamore Landfill’s overall disposal capacity would more than double, increasing by approximately 82 million cubic yards to 153 million cubic yards.   [Read more…]

Shapeshifting Romney Smacked Around in Final Presidential Debate

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Two weeks out from the election, Romney attempts to reinvent himself on foreign policy, auto bailout.

Remember that debate two weeks ago? That one was unquestionably won decisively by Mitt Romney? That was the day that a whole new Mitt Romney emerged from this campaign: It signaled the first appearance of “Moderate Mitt,” as Bill Clinton like to call him.

That night the President came out lethargic, clearly not ready to spar with an aggressive and confident Republican challenger. Perhaps (probably) he was caught off guard by the sudden and unexpected softening of the Republican on so many issues, ranging from abortion to his compassion for “the 100%.” Obama was expecting to meet the “severe conservative” Mitt Romney on the stage that night in Denver, but instead encountered a whole new Mitt Romney that the nation had never met before. It was quite obvious that the new and improved Mitt Romney 3.0 threw Obama off his game. He didn’t quite know how to react to this brand new model. Consider that after scarcely a word about his time as Governor of Massachusetts, suddenly it’s a central talking point?   [Read more…]

The Starting Line –How the Taxpayers Association Enabled the ‘$2500’ iPads Being Used in San Diego Schools

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The email has been everywhere. It’s at the center of the campaign against San Diego Unified’s School District’s Proposition Z, a measure asking the voters for additional financing for capital improvements and repairs to school properties.

The headline screams “School Board is Buying iPads for $2,500, New San Diego County Taxpayers Association Analysis Shows”. We’re quickly told that SDUSD “is using 40-year Capital Appreciation Bonds, the same risky, long-term financing notoriously used by the Poway Unified School District.” Without skipping a beat we’re breathlessly told that every dollar spent by the Board will cost taxpayers seven dollars.

But what the “No on Z” people (who are basically the same as the Taxpayers Association) aren’t telling us about is the role that they played in approving this “risky financing”. Or that the financing deal really isn’t the same as Poway’s. And that there’s a really big “IF” underlying their financial assumptions.   [Read more…]

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