The Real News’ Jaisal Noor interviews teacher and union activist Noelanie Fuentes Cardona who tells us about Law 85 and how Puerto Rico’s Democratic governor and Betsy DeVos have teamed up to introduce charter schools and online schools to an island still coping with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Maria. [Read more…]
An Open Letter in Support of SB 1186 to Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher
By Shahid Buttar / Electronic Frontier Foundation
Dear Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher,
We live in dangerous times. The rights of people of color, immigrants, workers, women, and asylum seekers are threatened every day. As history has repeatedly shown, one of the most powerful tools of oppression is surveillance. California has the opportunity to ensure public control and oversight of the spying technologies that law enforcement is most likely to abuse. Right now, the power is in your hands to ensure it moves forward.
With each year, civil rights advocates have watched technology advance amidst a climate of growing secrecy, allowing authorities to collect more and more personal data from more and more people and store it indefinitely, without parameters for how it can be used, with whom it can be shared, or what to do if it is misused or abused. We ask you, as chair of the California Assembly Appropriations Committee, to pass S.B. 1186 out of the committee without further amendments.
We have reached the point where unchecked surveillance may pose a public safety risk as great as the ones the technology is meant to address. [Read more…]
Proposition 6: Carl DeMaio’s Endless Initiatives Strategy, Part One
The first phase of former Carl DeMaio’s plan to save the Golden State’s Grand Old Party (and himself) will appear on the November 2018 ballot as Proposition 6, the “Voter Approval for Future Gas and Vehicle Taxes and 2017 Tax Repeal Initiative.”
If approved by voters in November, the measure would amend California’s Constitution to require any gas and car tax added after January 1, 2017 be approved by voters and would repeal SB 1, the gas tax and vehicle fee hike signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2017 after it gained a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses.
Regardless of whether this year’s measure succeeds or fails, there’s another one waiting in the wings for the 2020 election. DeMaio told the Sacremento Bee he’s calling phase two the “Robin Hood initiative — stealing our money back.” [Read more…]
The Creeping Privatization of Public Libraries
By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos
At 17,566, there are more public libraries in the United States than there are Starbucks coffee shops. And just like at Starbucks, patrons have access to free wi-fi. But unlike Starbucks, public libraries will usually provide the free use of a computer as well as internet access.
Perhaps it is their very ubiquitousness that makes them such a tempting target for libertarians like the Koch brothers and right-wing economists like the one who recently suggested a takeover of libraries’ functions by Amazon.
Forbes quickly pulled the controversial op-ed by contributor Panos Mourdoukoutas, an economist and academic who felt that many of the functions of the local library, like free Wi-Fi, and movie rentals are already being filled by places like Starbucks and services like Netflix. Why shouldn’t Amazon open stores to provide books to the public? His argument included the fact that public libraries cost taxpayers money (gasp). It would be so much nicer for him if he did not have to contribute a couple of hundred dollars every year to American literacy. The American Library Association reports that the actual annual cost is $36.96 per person.
How U.S. Involvement In Central America Led To a Border Crisis | Video Worth Watching
So many of the recent asylum seekers along our southern border are from the Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Is this just coincidence? Hardly. For anyone that’s used the term “Banana Republic” without being clear how that term originated (actually, even if you do know how the history of that term), here’s a brief look back at how U.S. involvement In Central America led to our current border crisis. [Read more…]
Out-of-Town Vacation Rental Owners Summoned for ‘Firestorm of Anger’ At City Council Meeting
When the San Diego City Council voted by a wide majority on July 16 to regulate short-term vacation rentals, it was using the democratic process to resolve an issue that has been plaguing the city and especially the beach and coastal neighborhoods for years. By a vote of 6 to 3, the bi-partisan majority vote saved coastal residences for long-term renters.
Yet, immediately, the Airbnb crowd cried foul, threatening legal suits – and more against the vote – which has to be confirmed on Wednesday, August 1 in a so-called “second reading” of the ordinance. The second reading will be at 1PM in the Council Chambers at 202 C Street, 12th floor.
So, now Airbnb, HomeAway, and local STVR operators are planning “an all-out assault” against the regulations just passed coming up for that second reading. One owner of a local mini-empire of vacation rentals has called for a “firestorm of anger” to be unleashed at the City Council meeting. [Read more…]
Fast Food Chains Forced to End ‘No Poaching’ Policies, Others Under Investigation
We have heard the argument against the “Fight for 15” campaign, which tells us fast food jobs require no skill and no expertise and, therefore, are not worthy of making $15 per hour.
That argument is rubbish, something fast food chain employers know all too well — and the primary reason behind their ‘no poaching’ policies. These policies allows food chains to block workers from changing branches in search of better pay or promotions, all while the company pays the lowest wage they can. In fact, they will even cheat these skilled workers on their already low wages hoping nobody reports them to our local Employee Rights Center or the State Labor Commissioner’s office.
Now, according to the Associated Press, the state of Washington has busted several food chains, including McDonald’s, Arby’s, Carl’s Jr., and Buffalo Wild Wings for having such policies that violate the state’s anti-trust laws. The state’s attorney general said businesses must compete for workers just as they compete with other businesses. Those chains have agreed to settle legal claims by ending those practices. [Read more…]
Robert Reich: We’re Living a Constitutional Crisis | Video Worth Watching
I’ve read quite a few ruminations regarding what will precipitate a constitutional crisis during this administration, but as Robert Reich is here to explain, there’s no need to wait. We are in a constitutional crisis. [Read more…]
As Medicare and Medicaid Turn Fifty Three, Republicans Plan to Privatize One and Gut the Other
By Martha Burk / Other Words
July 30 marks a very important anniversary in our modern political history.
Fifty-three years ago in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, creating two programs that would disproportionately improve the lives of older and low-income Americans — especially women.
Fast-forward to 2018, and both programs are very much under siege. Nowhere is the struggle starker than in the House Republican budget — titled “A Brighter American Future” — now on Capitol Hill. [Read more…]
The Spy Who Loved the NRA | Video Worth Watching
Full Frontal’s Samantha Bee highlights the peculiar relationship between an alleged Russian spy and the NRA. She also pointedly notes that the NRA, which typically blasts back at the slightest intimation of criticism, has been markedly silent on this issue: no comments since the news broke on July 17th with the indictment of Maria Butina by the Justice Department. Hmmm. [Read more…]
Flames of Ignorance and the Wisdom of the Snail | Seeds of Rebellion, Part 3
After wandering through the Schools for Chiapas Mayan Food Forest incubator in Part I, and witnessing the resistance by the First Peoples of southern Mexico to powerful corporate and governmental forces intent on destroying their autonomy and culture in Part II, we conclude with a look back to a past marvelous and shameful and towards a future carved on the shell of a snail.
“The diet of the people here before the Spanish conquest was so much more than corn and beans,” explains Paco Vazquez, a coordinator with Prodmedios, a media company based in San Cristóbal that empowers local communities all over Mexico to tell their own stories using a wide variety of media. Raised on the outskirts of what was once the Aztec capital, Paco is a direct descendant of the Nahuatl water architects who constructed the floating gardens and aquaculture the Spanish marveled at, and then destroyed. Five centuries have transformed a city once laced by clear running canals into a diesel-choked metropolis; so Paco knows something about lost knowledge. [Read more…]
Homes for the Homeless in San Diego Will Have to Wait. And It’s Nobody’s Fault. Really?
The people who need housing the most –namely those without– have been shafted again.
Having an affordable and safe place to live shouldn’t be as hard as it is in San Diego. Excuses are made, studies are promised, politicians pledge to take action. And the situation gets worse by the day.
A handful of stories published in the local press in recent weeks taken together highlight just how bad things really are. I have two thoughts on the subject: excuses are for losers, and housing ought to be treated as a right rather than a goal. [Read more…]
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