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Justice Scalia’s Passing Portends a Bitter Partisan Showdown

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Apparently, the GOP thinks that Black Presidents only get 3/5ths of a term

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia moved on to his final judgment day over the weekend. The nation’s conservatives skipped past mourning mode for a man who’d immeasurably helped their causes and went directly to saber rattling.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, en route to his annual visit to the US Virgin Islands, wasted no time in letting it be known that President Obama shouldn’t waste his time trying to pick a replacement.

“The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell said in a statement. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.”   [Read more…]

Michael Moore Says His New Movie Will Change America

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“Free universal health care, free university, free day care, taxing and policing hedge fund millionaires—have already happened in nearly every other industrialized country in the world! And I have the evidence—and the film—to prove it!”

By Lauren McCauley / CommonDreamsWhere to Invade Next, which is said to be both his happiest and “most subversive” movie yet.

In the film, Moore travels to countries throughout Europe and also Tunisia to “pry loose from them the tools they’ve been using to make their countries happy, shiny places,” he writes, with the goal of “show[ing] millions of Americans what these countries have been hiding from us.” Such tools range from eight weeks paid vacation in Italy, to a year of paid maternity leave in Scandinavia, to women with “true equality and power” in Tunisia, to trusting prisons in Norway.

Moore, who is known for such works as Bowling for Columbine and Capitalism: A Love Story, penned an open letter to supporters last week explaining how a recent bout of pneumonia and subsequent hospital stay forced him to cancel all television appearances promoting the film.   [Read more…]

Stop Playing Word Games: Debate Moderators Must Ask Honest Questions About Abortion

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By Jodi Jacobson / RH Reality Check

The media loves to obsess about—and stoke controversy around—abortion and contraception. Journalists and talk show hosts can endlessly plumb these long-simmering issues for ratings and sound bites. On the Sunday talk shows, in radio interviews, and presidential debates, politicians exclaim with abandon their support for any number of restrictions and laws, using their so-called pro-life stances to gin up their bases like matadors swinging a red cloak in front of a riled-up bull.

Rarely, however, do journalists stop to ask these politicians: Exactly what is the evidence for your position? And I have never heard anyone ask for some deeper reflection by a politician on the consequences of treating the lives of millions of people and families like so many political poker chips to bargain away at the election table.

After all, when some powerful senator blithely declares he “chooses life,” he’s not choosing to pay the medical bills for, diaper, feed, clothe, nurture, educate, and make a lifelong commitment to that child. He is leaving that to someone else who becomes a parent for the rest of their life, whether they wanted to be or not, or can afford to, or not.   [Read more…]

Apple Search No Longer Directs Women Seeking Abortions to Adoption Centers

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Advocates for sexual and reproductive empowerment say the glitch was unacceptable

By Valerie Tarico / AlterNet

Ask Siri where to get an abortion and you get a list of adoption agencies. For five years that was the experience of Apple users in cities ranging from San Francisco to Philadelphia. Recent technical upgrades appear to have resolved the problem, but advocates seeking to end abortion stigma say they intend to keep an eye on Siri and her competitors.

The media called the problem to Apple’s attention as early as 2011, but until this month requests for a fix got little response other than assurances that technologies were improving. In January, Fast Company searched for abortion providers in and around San Francisco, and both Siri and Apple maps instead directed journalists to adoption agencies, including one 30 miles outside of the city. A researcher from UCSF, Alexis Hoffman, tested Apple products over the course of several months in cities across the country, and got similarly problematic results.   [Read more…]

Highways as Rivers of Toxic Air: Millions are Impacted by Ultra-fine Particulate Pollution

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By Bill Adams / San Diego UrbDeZine

People know that air pollution is bad for their health, that auto exhaust emissions contribute to air pollution, and that certain cities suffer worse air pollution than others. Some people pay attention to smog reports and even avoid strenuous activities on smoggy days. What most people don’t know is that there is a certain type of auto emission pollutant that discriminates in a most predictable but unfair way. It’s also a pretty safe assumption that people aren’t fully aware of the severity of the health impacts from this pollutant.

Every year, hundreds of decisions are made in which the life and health of thousands of people are unknowingly sacrificed to this pollutant for the convenience or profit of others who are relatively safe from it. Second hand cigarette smoke, GMOs, and high tension power lines, have all captured the public attention and sparked outcries for change. When the public becomes aware of this auto exhaust pollutant and the pathology and inequality of its health impact, it is reasonable to believe they will demand a dramatic change in our transportation priorities.

To understand this pollutant and how it works, one most first understand that there are different types of air pollution – even from a single source like an automobile. Most people think of smog. Few people are aware of the more dangerous and discriminatory particulate pollution, also known as ultra-fine particulate pollution (UFP). Exposure to this type of pollution is entirely dependent on proximity to source. In other words, exposure depends on how close you live or work near a busy roadway, whether a road is expanded near you, whether your child is in a school near a busy roadway, or how much time you spend driving.   [Read more…]

North of the Fence: Americans Flee Across Border, The Pope and Chula Vista Elections

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Is there an onslaught of American immigrants coming to Mexico? The story isn’t new. For decades Americans have been moving to Tijuana where the rent is cheaper. For local Tijuanese, this means Americans drive up their housing prices and create housing shortages.

How many Americans live in Tijuana, and in Mexico at large? The number is unknown. Guesstimates run the gamut from 5,000 to 500,000 Americans (in Tijuana alone). That’s a pretty big spread. Why don’t we know?   [Read more…]

Tiny Village of Tiny Shelters for San Diego Homeless: Small is the New Sexy

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No question about it—being involved in a coalition to build a tiny village of tiny shelters for people who are without a place to live, is damn exciting! I can’t put my finger on exactly why this is taking over my brain activity—from waking up in the morning ready to get online and share ideas, to dreaming about it at night. Maybe it’s what someone at our community meeting last week said about it—tiny homes are sexy!   [Read more…]

The Face of Homelessness in San Diego

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I met a homeless woman at a coffee shop in downtown San Diego. She had emailed me to correct a few points in a previous article I had written about the homeless. Her name is Jingles, not her real name, of course. That’s the name she goes by downtown. She’s tough, savvy, intelligent, resourceful, wise to the ways of the street. She is 55 years old with several health related problems and three small dogs. One of them is 20 years old and won’t be with her much longer. The three dogs prevent her from being taken in by a shelter, but she won’t give them up, and I don’t blame her. They are the best friends she has.

Her cell phone is her lifeline to the outside world and is what lets her know what’s going on out there. That’s how she was able to read the San Diego Free Press and then email me. It’s also a lifeline to 911 in case of a heart attack or other severe medical problems. Several of her cell phones have been stolen; then she has to start all over again spending money she doesn’t have.

She suffers from a variety of ailments including fibromyalgia, arthritis, manic depression, COPD, anxiety disorders and PTSD from living on the streets. She had a heart attack three years ago. She gets General Relief (GR). She has three GR workers who deal with various aspects of her case.   [Read more…]

Local Gardens: A Healthy Way to Build Communities

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By Jill Richardson / Common Dreams

Mark Winne, an author and anti-hunger activist, often says that the most important word in “community garden” isn’t “garden.” I saw this firsthand not long ago.

Standing in the sun between several small garden plots all morning, it may not have looked like much was going on. A few people stood in a circle, chatting. Occasionally, one would leave, or another would arrive. Several others were nearby, working in their garden plots.

Some of the people were black. Some were white. And two — a mother and child — appeared Southeast Asian.

The garden plots were equally varied. One was filled entirely with sugarcane. Another grew luffa gourds. Still another grew banana trees. That’s one of the perks of gardening in San Diego — you can grow your own bananas if you wish.   [Read more…]

Military In Control From the Start

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Part Three of Seven. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

After the Spanish settlement had been established in 1769, there followed a period of digging in—trying to make a go of it and becoming self-sufficient.

There is no question that, behind the religious front, it was the military that was firmly in command. We quote Smythe: “With the dedication of the Presidio and the Mission, the first institutions had been established in what is now the State of California. These institutions were typical of Spanish civilization (sic)—the soldier and the priest working side by side, but always with the sword above the Cross in point of authority. It was essentially a military government, and the commandant was empowered to deal out justice, civil and criminal.”   [Read more…]

The Lessons of Porter Ranch

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By Nicola Peill-Moelter, Ph.D. / SanDiego 350.org

The massive leak at the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility is a stark example of why natural gas is a significant health and safety risk and not a bridge fuel to our clean energy future. The facility, the second largest in the U.S., stores vast amounts of natural gas at high pressure in underground wells once used for oil extraction more than fifty years ago.

On or about October 23rd a rupture in a 60-year old injection well pipe a thousand feet underground initiated the leak. At its peak the leak had an estimated rate of one-hundred twenty-five thousand pounds of methane per hour. To date, the cumulative emissions from this single source is equivalent to 25% of the state’s annual methane emissions from major sources like agriculture and landfills, equivalent to the annual climate pollution of almost half a million cars.

  [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News – January 2016

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By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

On the last day of last year San Diego’s NBC 7 TV ran a story “Portions of San Onofre May Be Contaminated.”

The San Onofre nuclear plant unexpectedly and permanently shut down in 2013. Southern California Edison is the major owner, with San Diego Gas and Electric its minority partner.

According to NBC 7, the utilities have been leasing the shoreline land from the US Navy. The lease is supposed to end in 2023, but Edison and SDG&E want to end it earlier now that San Onofre is shut down for good.
  [Read more…]

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