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Finally, Respect: Calif. Domestic Workers Win OT Pay

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By Bradley Wong /Equal Voice News

Domestic workers in California — and groups and people who support better employment conditions for them nationwide — are hailing a new bill of rights signed into law Thursday in Sacramento.

The signing of AB 241 ensures that domestic workers in private homes are paid overtime for the hours they work.

The law goes into effect on Jan. 1, a year before similar but federal regulations announced this month begin, California state Assemblymember Tom Ammiano said in a statement. He is the main author of the bill.

“This is a big step for respecting and recognizing domestic work as real work, and the fight doesn’t stop here,” Marcela Escamilla, a San Francisco domestic worker, said in a statement released by Mujeres Unidas y Activas.   [Read more…]

Alvarez Gets The Nod from Democratic Party as Mayoral Election Takes Shape

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By Doug Porter

San Diego’s Democratic Central Committee met last night to consider the question of endorsing a candidate in the upcoming special mayoral contest.

Former City Attorney Mike Aguirre, civic activist Bruce Coons, former assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and City Councilman David Alvarez all pled their case behind closed doors in Kearny Mesa.

The Dems could have voted not to endorse at this point in the process. Or they could have endorsed more than one candidate. But either move would have effectively left the party’s ability to raise unlimited funds at the sidelines for the Nov 19th primary.

So in the end City Councilman David Alvarez won the endorsement with a 63-40 40-24 vote over Nathan Fletcher. In the event of a runoff after the special election, the committee agreed to back whichever Democrat advances, whether or not it’s Alvarez.   [Read more…]

Lobbyists Keep Nursing Homes Healthy, Disabled Patients Not So Much

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By Raul Carranza

At first blush, campaign finance reform and the rights of the disabled appear to be two unrelated issues. However, a deeper look reveals why money in politics affects our most vulnerable citizens.

In 1999, the United States Supreme Court handed down a historic decision in the form of Olmstead v. L.C.. The case involved two women, known as L.C and E.W., who were diagnosed with mental illness and retardation. They had been living in a Georgia state psychiatric facility until their doctors deemed them fit to be integrated back into the community.

However, the state of Georgia already had a long waiting list and very few community placement opportunities. As a result, L.C and E.W. were forced to stay institutionalized for years, despite being having received clearance from their doctors to leave the institutional setting.   [Read more…]

Fine Print of Obama’s EPA Rules Reveal Huge Giveaways to Big Coal and Gas

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Obama can’t fight ‘war on coal’ by giving industry $8 billion in government subsidies, say critics.

By Jacob Chamberlain/ Common Dreams

The Environmental Protection Agency announced new regulations for the energy industry on Friday which will limit, for the first time, the amount of carbon that gas- and coal-fired plants can emit into the atmosphere.

And though many of the larger environmental groups in the country welcomed the new restrictions, more critical observers of the EPA announcement argue the rules don’t go far enough in terms of limiting emissions. Meanwhile the Obama administration, in fact, is preparing to use huge amounts of public money to prop up the U.S. coal industry.

Such a scheme, according to one critic, “will make only modest cuts to power plant emissions” at a moment in history when much more dramatic actions are needed.   [Read more…]

How Factory Farms May Be Killing Us

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A report from the CDC reveals the grave dangers of antibiotic resistance and says factory-farmed animals are a big contributor

By Tara Lohan / AlterNet 

What would our healthcare system look like if we couldn’t perform surgeries, administer chemotherapy, replace joints, treat diabetes? It would be the end of modern medicine as we know it. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control warns we could be headed toward that very future.

Antibiotics revolutionized medicine in the 1940s, saving millions of lives over the last 70 years. But during that time bacteria have evolved to become resistant to certain antibiotics. The more antibiotics we use, the quicker resistance builds up. This has deadly repercussions.   [Read more…]

Peters: ObamaCare Will Work if We Let It

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Extremist elements in Congress are preventing reasonable solutions to real problems.

By Andy Cohen

The Affordable Care Act—pejoratively known as “ObamaCare” until its namesake took ownership of it—is happening, despite the best efforts of the law’s opponents to stop it. On October 1, the heath care exchanges set up either by the individual states or by the federal government will begin selling health insurance policies, and there doesn’t seem to be anything that the opposition can do to stop it.

The law is hardly a perfect one, much like Social Security and Medicare before it—social safety net programs that were likewise met with open hostility yet have become a part of the bedrock of American society—nor is it the ideal solution that many Americans would like to have seen enacted. But, as many would argue, and reasonably so, it was the best we could do under the circumstances, and there is always room for improvement. Start with a foundation and make it better as we go along, just like with Social Security and Medicare.

The basic premise of ObamaCare is a simple one: Provide health coverage to the nearly 40 million Americans currently without it; make healthcare something more akin to a right rather than a privilege reserved for those who can pay for it. But while the law falls short of that goal, it does expand coverage to a projected 30 million people. it does this in two ways…..   [Read more…]

Surviving an Active Shooter Event: Run-Hide-Fight is the New Duck and Cover

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Because we take public safety seriously

By Anna Daniels

Americans have apparently decided that events like those happening today in DC are acts of God like the Colorado floods or hurricanes in the Atlantic. There’s nothing we can do to prevent it. Mass shootings are the American Way. Digby Hullabaloo

Homeland Security provided funds for this Texas Public Service Announcement so that citizens are better prepared to deal with an unhinged shooter in their school, workplace, church/mosque/temple, movie theater or any of the other myriad public places in which they erroneously assume that they should be able to gather without the fear of being murdered.   [Read more…]

Extreme Weather Watch, August 2013

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By John Lawrence

August 2013 was prime time for wildfires.  The Rim fire, started by a hunter’s illegal fire, burned 370 square miles in California.  About a quarter of the fire was within Yosemite National Park.  More than 5,100 firefighters were battling the flames at their peak.  The Rim fire has destroyed 111 buildings, including 11 residences.  It threatened San Francisco’s water supply.  It has so far cost $72 million to fight and it’s still burning.  Research in California’s Sierra Nevada found that rising average summer temperatures are strongly associated with an increase in acres burned.  An annual increase in average summer temperature of 1º F is associated with a 35 percent growth in burned areas.

Nationally, federal agencies have spent more than $1 billion so far this year on wildfires, about half last year’s total of $1.9 billion.  There have been 33,000 fires that have burned more than 5,300 square miles, an area nearly the size of Connecticut.   [Read more…]

Rebuilding Barrio Logan Begins on Tuesday – And You Can Help

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A Call to Support Alternative 1

By Environmental Health Coalition

When you think of a healthy community, what comes to mind? Maybe you picture a park where children play, sustainable local businesses or tree-lined paths winding through clean neighborhoods. This is realistic for most of San Diego, unless you’re in Barrio Logan. Intermingling land use patterns designate parks, paths, businesses, schools and homes to share streets with heavily polluting industries. This incompatible mix not only makes residential neighborhoods feel more like industrial zones, but contributes to air quality so poor that children who breathe it go to the emergency room three times more than the rest of San Diego County.

These circumstances beg the question: What happened to this neighborhood, which was once one of the most thriving areas in San Diego? Full of legends, heroes and rich culture, Barrio Logan seems to have caught the short end of the stick since the 1950s. It helps to remember Barrio Logan (once known as Logan Heights) was once a flourishing local community, fostering a culture of musicians, artists, local businesses and a strong workforce, contributing to San Diego’s overwhelming success as a national destination.

Now it seems San Diego has forgotten its own history. While other neighborhoods have improved community plans to keep residents healthy and happy, Barrio Logan’s community plan hasn’t’ seen an update in over thirty years.   [Read more…]

Language Interpreters Are California’s Lifeline

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Lack of Interpreters is a Life and Death Situation for Many

By Lorena Gonzalez

There are more than 50 languages spoken more comfortable and proficiently than English by the residents in the South Bay and Mid-City San Diego neighborhoods I represent. Throughout California, this challenge is shared by more than 6.5 million Californians, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

Ordering food. Asking for directions. Attending school. Interviewing for a job. Filling prescriptions. Rescheduling appointments.

No situation involving a language barrier is as frightening, though, as one that risks the life of a loved one.   [Read more…]

San Diego City Council Committee Pushes for Ban on Plastic Bags

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By Frank Gormlie

A key committee of the San Diego City Council came out today in strong support for a ban of plastic bags. The Rules and Economic Development Committee took a unanimous vote in directing staff to construct an ordinance that would ban plastic bags at city grocery stores and other retail sites within the city.

The proposal at this stage of its process would ban plastic bags in supermarkets, and other retail sites that include large stores that sell food, drug stores, convenience, hardware and clothing stores. It also has a requirement that stores charge 10 cents a paper bag, but exempting restaurants, nonprofits, food stamp recipients, and produce and meat products.   [Read more…]

What’s in it for Me? Your Obamacare Health Insurance Options

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By Joan McCarter / Daily Kos

Oct. 1 will be upon us before we know it, the launch date of the health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.

Note that while we’re hearing a lot about the Oct. 1 deadline for the exchanges, that’s when people can first start signing up in an open enrollment period that runs through next March. Coverage won’t begin, however, until Jan. 1, 2014.

We tend to hear more about the politics of all this (still!) than the mechanics of all this, so it’s worth talking about some of the basics for the people who it will affect.   [Read more…]

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