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The Starting Line – Is Carl DeMaio Really Comparable To Harvey Milk?

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Last weekends’ protest aimed at Mayoral candidate and City Councilman Carl DeMaio during the 38th annual Pride parade continues to reverberate throughout the community. Johnathan Hale, publisher of SDGLN.com – who also happens to be DeMaio’s significant other – posted an article entitled Letter to the Community: Real LGBT leaders don’t put politics above Pride that has provoked fierce debates across social media platforms. The commentary compared DeMaio to LGBT political icon Harvey Milk and accused labor unions of organizing and funding the “Turn Your Back on Carl DeMaio” campaign.

Activist Wendy Sue Biegeleisen took to Facebook to respond, saying, “Harvey Milk was Jewish, from NY and fought for the underdog. He was pro-union, labor, supported diversity, feminism and Equal Rights for all LGBTQQIA people. What about this description sounds like Carl Demaio?” Labor Council leader Lorena Gonzalez, joined the debate via Twitter from the east coast, denying that Labor had a role in the protest and challenging Hale to prove his charges. Kelly Davis over at City Beat chimed in by pointing out that DeMaio “gave LGBT community plenty to be pissed off about by courting support of Charles LiMandri” and posting a link to an article about that controversy the paper had run. SDGLN tweeted back, saying “when @SDCityBeat covers Pride a stellar as the UT did this year, THEN we’ll take your opinions on LGBT issues seriously.”   [Read more…]

Pacific Beach Planning Board Resists City Builders’ Plans for Beach Development

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For the moment, city plans to develop the coastal cliff beach at Law St. in North Pacific Beach, with another new live-in lifeguard tower and garages, have met with an equally divided planning board, 7-7, with the tie vote cast by the board president, in a heated debate at the last PB Planning Board meeting, July 25, 2012, at the PB library community room.

Planning Board members, trying to balance the needs of the lifeguards and public safety, and city contractor jobs, with the obvious coastal erosion and rising ocean level concerns evident at this beach, decided to delay consideration of this project until more information can be provided. Questions as to the true nature and need of the project before a site could be chosen were at the forefront of the dilemma.   [Read more…]

Filner Under Fire for Saying He Would Follow the Law

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Mayoral candidate says he would negotiate with unions on pay freeze.

San Diego mayoral candidate Bob Filner came under fire last night for comments he made in an interview with the UT San Diego, saying that “he would push for the freeze even if the courts ruled Prop B illegal because two-thirds of city voters favored the plan.” The UT San Diego headline reads “New backer of SD pension overhaul: Bob Filner.” The Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis took to Twitter, more or less accusing Filner of flip-flopping on Prop B.

Filner was among the plan’s most vehement opponents during the primary election, and he still is. However, Filner also said during the final mayoral debate before the primary election that should Prop B be passed by the voters, it would become the law of the city, and therefore he would be obligated to implement it as mayor. He said he would follow the law and the will of the voters. And the voters have spoken.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Drinking the Right Wing Kool-Aid in Mission Valley; UT-SD’s Quest to Demonize President Obama

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How low will the UT-San Diego’s editorial board go in its quest to demonize President Obama?  Will they manufacture or twist history to portray him as the worst chief executive in history? You betcha!, as they did in an editorial profile (Presidential busts: The worst of all: Barack Obama...) this weekend. Will they cry “wolf” when one of contender Mitt Romney’s financial backers’ activities gets scrutinized by the federal government after years of investigations by state governments? Oh, yes!, they will.   [Read more…]

Brits mock the hell out of Mittens over “Anglo-Saxon” remarks. Do shut the hell up like a good chap

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by MinistryOfTruth / Daily Kos

A few notes from our friends across the pond on what Mitt Romney should support if he was really hell bent on rebuilding bonds with our Anglo-Saxon roots.

In short order, thanks to the The Guardian for this. . .

Want to be more like the Anglo-Saxons?

  [Read more…]

A (Brief) History of Ocean Beach Grassroots Activism

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The following is based on a talk I gave at the Green Store’s Open House on Saturday, July 14th.

This is an outline of the history – the modern history – of OB grassroots activism – which began in the late Sixties with the development and growth of the hippie sub-culture, the counter-culture.

By 1967, Ocean Beach had become the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego. OB was the San Diego equivalent of that fabled and iconic San Francisco neighborhood that had become synonymous with “hippie-ism”. If you were a hippie or a hippie-wannabe during this time somewhere in San Diego, you ended up in OB.

Of course, other factors contributed to the incubation in Ocean Beach of a community sympathetic and supportive of the new emerging counter-counter: before there were long-haired hippies in OB, there were long-haired surfers – as this community had been a center of surf-culture for years by time OB had morphed into a hippie haven. And, more in general, OB had been a classic southern California beach-college town, where students and young people made up a huge proportion of the residents. There were no colleges right in OB, but there were plenty close by. Cal-Western (now Nazarene) was just up the hill in Point Loma. Plus OB was a bedroom community for USD – also not too far away, but especially for San Diego State, and Mesa, City, UCSD.
  [Read more…]

4th Night of Unrest in Anaheim As Protesters Confront Police – Support Caravan Planned From San Diego

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Hundreds of Protesters – 24 Arrests and 7 Hours of Confrontations

Unrest continued last night – Tuesday, July 24th – in Anaheim, the fourth night in a row – between community residents protesting recent police lethal shootings and law enforcement. 24 arrests were made yesterday and overnight, near a half dozen injuries occurred during the seven hours of conflict Tuesday that ended around 2 a.m.

Anaheim police remained on alert Wednesday. The family of the man fatally shot on Saturday is suing the City and police and a support caravan from San Diego is going up to Anaheim on Sunday, July 29th.

Between 500 and 600 demonstrators were reported to have carried out protests throughout Tuesday, as hundreds of extra police were brought in to supplement Anaheim’s city police. Many of the protests were peaceful, yet police again fired pepper balls and beanbags at unarmed protesters. Some business windows were smashed, rocks were thrown at police, and dumpsters lit on fire.
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line — A DeMaio Tripleheader: Mayoral Candidate Snubs Cops, Flip Flops on Issues and Abets Suppression of Critical City Auditor Report

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San Diego’s mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio makes no bones about his antagonism towards city workers. Promotional materials for campaign fundraisers boast that he will refuse any and all campaign donations from any city employee. When the candidate was booed during the recent LGBT pride day parade – activists take issue with his political and financial relationships with wealthy social conservatives –, DeMaio told the UT-San Diego that unions were behind the critical crowds. But his deliberate snub of a City Council proclamation acknowledging the centennial anniversary of the San Diego Police Officers Association (SDPOA) yesterday left local observers agape. The mayoral hopeful used an interview with KUSI-TV as the excuse to duck out of the ceremony. His appearances on the local broadcast outlet are so frequent that wags say he may as well have his own dressing room at the station. DeMaio tweeted that the KUSI interview allowed him to “discuss my commitment to open government and full transparency”.

DeMaio takes a page from the Romney campaign… The Voice of San Diego published a report yesterday detailing five issues that candidate DeMaio has flip-flopped positions on, now that the primary season is over. Those subjects include: the Jacobs/Sanders Balboa Park remake (for it, against it, then for it again), funding for the arts (cut $6 million, now doubling support), Social Security benefits for city workers (no, now yes), road repairs (ballot initiative, now a budget matter), and downtown “insiders” (demonized during primary season, aggressive courtship now).   [Read more…]

Activists call NRC Ruling on San Onofre “Dangerous Coverup”

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The announcement on July 19th by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) stating that Southern California Edison (SCE) – the owner of the San Onofre Nuclear Power station – had complied will all regulations is yet another dangerous case of regulators looking the other way coupled with gutted unsafe regulations, according to local anti-nuke activist groups. The groups include Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE), Citizens’ Oversight, and the Peace Resource Center of San Diego.

Listen to the activists:

Carol Jahnkow of the Peace Resource Center of San Diego:

”It’s a very sad commentary when regulatory agencies will allow transgressions to occur and will not speak out about them, to avoid scrutiny themselves.”   [Read more…]

California’s ‘Special Exemptions’ Act: The Biggest Threat You Haven’t Heard Of

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By Dante Atkins / Daily Kos

November 2012 will be a cataclysmic showdown between the forces of democracy and the forces of unlimited wealth. If we lose this, the plutocrats will be in charge and will be able to write their own rules to further the interests of Wall Street and the one percent. If we lose this fight, anti-democratic legislation will continue to sweep across the nation, overwhelming the grassroots support and small-dollar contributions of those who dare to fight against overwhelming odds.

And I’m not talking about the reelection campaign of Barack Obama. No, this battle to the death between moneyed interests and working people will play out in California in the form of Proposition 32. This measure, proponents say, would ban both corporate and union contributions for most political purposes and make citizens reign supreme. But progressives here have taken to calling it the “special exemptions act.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – California Republicans to Push Voter ID Measure in Quest to Completely Marginalize Party

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Just shoot me, please… On the heels of a New York Times article describing the California Republican Party as “caught in a cycle of relentless decline, and appears in danger of shrinking to the rank of a minor party”, the State GOP has announced plans for sponsorship of a Voter Identification initiative for the next election cycle. To kick off that effort the party has invited conservative columnist John Fund, co-author of the forthcoming book “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk.” to its August convention in Burbank.

The move to enact a Voter ID law is sure to alienate minority voters, who are poised to become a majority of the electorate in California in the near future. Attorney General  Eric Holder characterized Voter ID laws as a new poll tax at the recent NAACP convention. Two new reports — released by the Brennan Center of Justice at the NYU School of Law and the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication, respectively – have further undermined the GOP’s discredited claims that voter ID laws do not have a discriminatory impact on persons of color and are not intended to be discriminatory on the basis of race.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – San Diego’s LGBT Parade Called ‘Historic’; DeMaio Draws Boos

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Gay Pride Weekend Recap… The historic significance of San Diego’s 38th annual LGBT Parade of Saturday garnered press from around the country over the past couple of days as military personal received official permission to participate in the procession.

Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio’s participation in LGBT events over the weekend drew a decidedly mixed response. Some spectators participated in an Facebook organized protest and turned their backs as the controversial candidate passed by; polite applause was mixed with boos throughout the parade route. This video gives a good sense of the reception he received.   [Read more…]

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