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The Back Story about the ‘Innocence of Muslims’, the death of four Americans and shameless candidate Mitt Romney

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Let’s start at the beginning of this one, shall we? The U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three others died yesterday over what amounts to a home video made by a bigoted California real-estate developer. An angry mob attacked the U.S. embassy in Cairo. Before all the particulars were in (and breaking a self imposed embargo on political attacks on September 11th) the Republican nominee issued a factually incorrect statement denouncing the Obama administration.

So let’s start with the video/film. It’s an amateurish production called “Innocence of Muslims”, produced by a self-described Israeli Jew and California developer named Sam Bacile. Until recently, the video seemed destined to languish in the dust bins of right-wing theocratic books stores; it had been screened exactly once, to a mostly empty theater in Los Angeles. (Eds Note: Turns out that the full length feature that the trailer promoted never existed)

“Innocence” depicts the Islamic religion as a “cancer”, Muslims in general as immoral and gratuitously violent, and the prophet Mohammed variously sleeping with women, talking about killing children and referring to a donkey as “the first Muslim animal.” It also strongly suggests that the founder of that religion was a pedophile.

There are breaking developments on this story, come on inside to catch up…   [Read more…]

Romney: “I pay all the taxes that are legally required, not a dollar more.”

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What Mitt fails to say is that most of the money he makes is funneled through offshore shell corporations in no tax jurisdictions so that no taxes are legally required at all. We have written before about how easy it is to set up an offshore shell corporaration linked to a bank account in the Cayman Islands, the Seychelles, Bermuda or a whole slew of other no tax jurisdictions. When money is made by a shell corporation in these places no taxes are legally required.

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The Myth of the Filibuster-Proof Democratic Senate

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Republicans have magically, mystically turned 72 days into two full years.

We’ve heard it over and over and over again. Mitch McConnell has gleefully used it as a cudgel. Congressional Republicans typically can’t wait to get their mugs on camera to tell America just how inept Congressional Democrats are in order to aid their case that they should be put back in power. After all, Democrats couldn’t get anything done even with a 60 vote, filibuster-proof majority in the United States Senate during the first two years of the Obama administration.   [Read more…]

Proposition 33: A Corporation’s Abuse of the Citizen’s Initiative System

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If you ever needed a case study in how one rich individual can buy a law that favors his auto insurance business while screwing consumers, Proposition 33 would fit the bill perfectly. It’s such a bad apple that other insurance companies, not exactly known for their pro-consumer attitudes when it comes to making money, won’t even support this law. Not that they wouldn’t benefit, but they’re embarrassed by its audacity.

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Romney-Ryan asks: Are you better off?

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By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

I’m sitting in a kayak, staring at a beautiful seascape along the Downeast coast of Maine, wondering if the fabulous seaweed-adorned rock before me might metamorphous into something equally fabulous and more inclined toward sharing sea stories.

That would be cool. But the rock doesn’t sprout even one magical toe. I contemplate the inanimate thing, still hopeful, and lo and behold the Romney-Ryan campaign visage comes to mind!

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The Starting Line – Desperate Days at the UT-San Diego: Will the Tag ‘Mayberry by the Sea’ Stick?

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The malaise of the local media scene took a turn for the worse over the weekend as Publisher “Papa Doug” Manchester and his sidekick John Lynch took a hard right hand turn and drove the local daily newspaper off the cliff of delusional insanity. Today we’ll bring you up to date with the latest developments in what is quickly becoming a national embarrassment for San Diego, share some local reactions to his latest jaw-dropping moves and contemplate the underlying causes of the Mission Valley media mogul’s machinations.

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Slouching Toward San Diego to Be Born: Carl DeMaio, Spawn of the Wrecking Crew

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It’s the week after Labor Day and the Carl DeMaio attack machine is in full force, with SuperPac-funded ads in the works designed to keep pounding away at Bob Filner while DeMaio furiously tries to repackage himself as someone palatable to moderate Democrats and Independents.  This will involve things like lying to San Diegans about his environmental record, spending big money to woo Latino voters, and hoping that some local Democrats are terminally stupid enough to buy his “independent” populist reformer act.   While I have written extensively about DeMaio’s right wing think tank pedigree, it never hurts to revive the historical record, particularly when we can count on the local news to fail on all counts in this regard.

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Proposition 37: The Right to Know What You’re Eating

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I wrote a previous article in the San Diego Free Press about genetically modified (GMO) foods. One might ask, “What is the purpose of genetically modifying a food item.” Is it to enhance the flavor? Is it to make it more nutritious? Well, no, not really.

The sole purpose of modifying corn and soy products is to make them resistant to pesticides and herbicides.  Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soy seeds grow into plants that will not be killed when Roundup is sprayed on the soy field which kills every other thing in the field EXCEPT the Roundup Ready soy plant.

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One Year Later at Occupy San Diego – Checking Up on Our Own Occupy Wallstreet Movement

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By Kali Kat / Originally posted at the OB Rag

With the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street just around the corner on September 17, and many other cities’ occupy anniversaries falling in the weeks just after, like Occupy San Diego’s one year anniversary on October 7, the question being begged is:

“What is the current state of the Occupy movement?” If you go down to the Civic Center or your local City Hall, are people still living there?

The Occupy movement, including Occupy San Diego (OSD), is still alive and well, but no, there are not people still living there – well not people flying the Occupy flag anyways.

Although some argue losing the encampments was good for the movement and has freed up time for other things, otherwise Occupy would still be busy discussing solutions to problems like feeding each other, trash collection and dump, or how to deal with the homeless and mentally ill population, it was not by choice that the Occupy encampments were broken up.   [Read more…]

Proposition 38 and the Undeclared War of 2012

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By Kimberley Beatty / Special to San Diego Free Press

There is an openly secret war between Prop 38 and Prop 30 and it’s important to understand how this unnecessary conflict happened.  Both propositions increase taxes and that’s where the problem begins.  Any revenue increase requires a 2/3 vote of both the state senate and assembly.  All but two Republican legislators have signed the Grover Norquist Anti-Tax Pledge, vowing to never, under any circumstances raise taxes or even allow the citizens to be able to vote on the issue.

The only possible exception would be a revenue neutral bill, where a tax increase here would be used for a tax cut there.  With rare exception, all Republicans fall in line or suffer the retribution response of a vengeful party, including lost leadership positions on committees and recalls.

Given this undemocratic system, it was predictable that in the Spring of 2011 Governor Brown would fail to get enough votes in the state legislature to qualify an initiative to allow citizens to decide whether to extend his temporary taxes on vehicles, sales and income.   [Read more…]

Citizens Must Remain Vigilant and Proactive Against the University City Power Plant

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By Brent Perkins

Our problem has not been solved, it has merely gone underground. We have a City and a Mayor’s Office that seems determined to shoehorn an 800 megawatt industrial power plant directly amidst our schools, parks, shopping centers, churches, and densely populated neighborhoods. Any government that would, by design and intent, bring such an abomination to our homes is dangerous and ill intended.
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The Starting Line – Publisher Manchester disables left turn signals on all UT-San Diego vehicles

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Okay, I made that up. But it is true that our Daily Fishwrap is rolling out bold new features designed to make sure that readers better understand their vision for a brand new yesterday. “New online:”, says the color type at the top of today’s front page, “Seeing Red: A Conservative View of Politics”. And sure enough, if you go there, you’ll find an even more conservative amalgamation of “news” and opinion drawn from the right side of the political equation.

Wow, it sure is “high tech” looking. Unlike Fox news, which claims its punditry is separate from its “news”, UT-San Diego makes no bones about it, this latest feature IS part of the news department. It says so right in URL they use. If you want to have some fun, send a ‘friendly’ tweet with the hashtag #utseeingred and they’ll run it on a little scrolling feature at the bottom of the page.

But wait! There’s more! “Coming Sunday:…Bolder Opinion pages…”. And you can get a preview on today’s editorial page. Just in case you didn’t comprehend their arguments for the alternative universe espoused by Manchester’s Mission Valley minions THEY’VE MADE THE TYPE BIGGER. DON”T YOU PEOPLE GET IT YET?   [Read more…]

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