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AARP’s Spineless Response to Social Security, Medicare Privatization Threat

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AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, recently sent a call to action letter to its members about the need to secure future Social Security benefits. That opening line should have generated a sigh of relief from AARP’s 37.8 million members over the age of 50 who have been following the rumblings from the new Republican Congress to privatize Medicare and Social Security.

Read a little further and you find out that AARP is not alerting us to the potential unraveling in 2017 of two wildly popular and essential components of our social safety net–but rather the potential insolvency of Social Security in 2034. Imagine that your house has been doused in gasoline and an arsonist is standing close by with a box of matches but you are being told that your problem is that you aren’t saving enough money to tent the place for termites seventeen years into the future.   [Read more…]

The Obstacles to Navigating San Diego’s Housing Crunch

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By David Jackson / San Diego UrbDeZine

A Population Boom and a Housing Crunch. Rising prices and short supply are making it increasingly difficult to pay the rent in San Diego. If you’ve attempted to search for a place to rent in San Diego you’ve probably encountered more than a few roadblocks and had your fair share of frustrations. The challenges multiply if you’ve tried to find something affordable anywhere near where you work.

Housing prices have soared over the last several years to the delight of homeowners and landlords, but to the dismay of renters, especially those with lower incomes. The effects are being felt most directly by low income residents and millennials. New low income housing is needed in the short term with further developments in the coming years to prevent the city’s housing crisis from turning into an economic one.

A study by the London Group published by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce highlights one of the root causes for the housing shortfall, a lack of new building permits being issued in San Diego County.   [Read more…]

As Resistance Grows, Trump’s Deportation Plans Unravel

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Cost, impossible logistics, political opposition, and community resistance could spell the end of the president-elect’s anti-immigrant scheme

By Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

President-elect Donald Trump built his campaign on a pledge to build a wall and deport two to three million undocumented immigrants, but the likelihood that his promises will be kept are looking increasingly slim, as reality takes hold and lawmakers and community leaders begin to build their resistance.

The failure to execute Trump’s oft-repeated deportation plans could “be one of the first reality checks on his administration,” Politico reported Friday.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the average cost for each deportation is $12,213, excluding personnel salaries. So, to deport two million people, would add up to more than $24.4 billion over four years.   [Read more…]

Call to Action for Homeless San Diegans!

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By Women Occupy San Diego

On Tuesday, January 3, 2017, at 10:00 am, Women Occupy San Diego will host a Press Conference and Rally on the Civic Concourse by San Diego City Hall, before delivering over 1,000 signatures on a Change.org petition calling for Emergency Humanitarian Action by Mayor Kevin Faulconer to suspend the ticketing, arrest or stay-away orders of homeless people.

As Mayor, he is responsible for the safety of these San Diegans who are left to our streets as a direct consequence of the decisions and actions by him and other San Diego government and business leaders over the past decade, which have decimated San Diego’s affordable housing stock. This is a man-made Disaster, and requires Disaster Relief, NOT ticketing, arrest and stay away orders from services and resources desperately needed by homeless people.   [Read more…]

Russian Hacking and the 2016 Presidential Election

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Serious People are claiming that news accounts about Russian meddling in US elections are somehow equivalent to the Weapons of Mass Destruction stories peddled in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq. Or a liberal version of the group-think on the Trumpian right about millions of illegal aliens voting for Hillary Clinton.

And then there are others on the right, like the Heritage Foundation, who would have us believe the special relationship between two oligarchs is somehow a good thing. They find much to admire about having a strongman in charge, as opposed to an imperfect democracy.

The reluctance of the FBI/Homeland Security report to disclose sources and methods along with the Obama’s administration’s reliance on the (often meaningless) tactic of diplomatic expulsions as the public side of their response to Russia are cited as reasons to doubt the official account.
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Veterans For Peace Statement on Syria

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By Veterans for Peace

The war in Syria has been ongoing for five years, with the situation in Aleppo, once Syria’s most populous city, having deteriorated over the past four years into a multi-proxy war and a humanitarian disaster.

We have seen strong disagreements within the peace movement on the reasons behind this war, and on what our response should be. Those disagreements even exist within our ranks. As we struggle through the complexities of the war, we recognize that most of us are far removed from it, fortunate to be safe in our homes and able to voice these disagreements without fear of reprisal.

However, our mission at Veterans For Peace has not changed. We oppose war. We are against the targeting of, as well as the failure to protect, innocent civilians caught up in war, or any other conduct by an individual, group or nation that could be classified as a war crime. We oppose U.S. military involvement in other countries that violates international law.   [Read more…]

Fighting the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” Decision

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By Paul Keleher and John Lawrence

The balance is tipped towards the interests of the rich when vast amounts of money are required in the exercise of free speech. There is obviously a difference between someone spouting off on a street corner and some entity organizing and paying for advertising on TV which is the form most political speech takes. Unless any legitimate group is given a certain amount of free TV ad time and every group is limited to the same amount, the balance of political speech is tipped in favor of those with the most money whether it is individuals or corporations. Wolf-Pac is dedicated to the public financing of elections.

Justice Stevens, in arguing for the minority on the Supreme Court, said that the Court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution. A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.” He argued that in a democracy money should not determine the outcome of an election.   [Read more…]

Let’s Not Forget Our Core Values, Congressman Hunter

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By Shawn VanDiver

“There are some assholes in the world who just need to be shot.”

What a striking sound bite–especially when it is ascribed to President-elect Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense, the beloved and seemingly infallible General “Mad Dog” Mattis. Reality, however, cannot always be summed up through sound bites. And besides, General Mattis surely could not have meant that unarmed civilians or detainees in the custody of the U.S. Military deserve to be killed without trial or imminent threat. Therefore when Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr.–whose father previously held the office for many years–used this quote from General Mattis, my lie detector went off.   [Read more…]

Sanders Says Trump’s “Dangerous” Nuclear Arms Race Talk Must Be Challenged

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‘Presidents, Republicans and Democrats, have understood that our goal must be to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, not expand them.’

By John Queally / Common Dreams

Sen. Bernie Sanders has made it known that Donald Trump should not go unchallenged by his congressional colleagues as troubling comments by the President-elect about nuclear weapons this week sparked alarm across the United States and the world.

Following an initial out-of-the-blue tweet Thursday saying the U.S. should “expand” its nuclear arsenal followed by “clarifying” remarks Friday to MSNBC in which Trump said, “Let it be an arms race,” Sanders responded: “It’s a miracle a nuclear weapon hasn’t been used in war since 1945. Congress can’t allow the Tweeter in Chief to start a nuclear arms race.”   [Read more…]

The Benefits of Community Choice Energy and How California Utilities Aim to Block Them

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By Tyson Siegele / SD350.org

In California, the fight is on between renewable energy advocates and the old guard electric utilities. All across California, cities and counties have been moving to implement Community Choice programs because they provide cheaper, cleaner, locally generated electricity. In fact these programs are so good, the utilities hope you never hear about them.

Before we get to the conflict and intrigue, let’s look at the basics of this new approach to buying electricity. Community Choice Energy (CCE), also known as Community Choice Aggregation, is a way for cities, counties or regions in California to look out for their own energy interests, a hybrid between regulated and deregulated electricity supply. The local utility still provides all of the billing services and infrastructure to supply electricity to the point of use, but they are no longer responsible for selecting the electricity supplier. Instead, the community chooses its energy supplier. Possibly the best part of a Community Choice Energy program is that it allows us choice.   [Read more…]

Whatever Trump Is, It’s Genuine

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By Michael-Leonard Creditor

No, I don’t like it. But that’s just because what’s occurring in the new administration is against my politics and social outlook. Nor do I agree with it. This is a wrong thing to do from the get-go, but you’ll hafta read all the way through to see why I think so. But I think I can shed some light on what Trump is doing.

Some pundits and commentators are saying that Trump is basically playing us all; just showing what he can “get away with.” This takes him from merely being a con-man (Trump U., Trump steaks, etc.) to being a swindler who would co-opt the federal government. And, this line of thought portrays Trump as tipping his hand by making outlandish appointments before he even takes the Oath of Office.

I think that is absurd. I think he simply and genuinely wants to make government work like a business model; business is the only model he knows.   [Read more…]

Why Privatizers Look Forward to 2017

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By Donald Cohen / Capital & Main

“We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks.”

That’s what Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s chief strategist and cofounder of the website Breitbart, said a few weeks ago about Trump’s plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure.

That pretty much fits with what we know so far. Trump wants to “invest” $1 trillion in fixing and building roads, bridges, water pipes and other infrastructure. But by “invest” he means using massive tax breaks to convince private investors to spend the money.

As Michelle Chen at The Nation writes, “The goal isn’t fixing bridges so much as fixing the corporate tax codes to promote privatization and unregulated construction with virtually no public input.”

  [Read more…]

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