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There Ain’t No Party Like a California GOP Tea Party Convention

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By Doug Porter

This weekend’s Republican statewide gathering in Anaheim was chock full of irony.

Across the street from the GOP convention, Disneyland was hosting “Gay Days” even as the party faithful vowed to fight recently enacted California laws protecting transgender rights.

The political party pitched the media on how this gathering would showcase the new bigger tent GOP chock full of fresh faces and ideas even as one of its approved vendors hawked anti-Hillary buttons promoting knuckle dragging sexism.   [Read more…]

Little Statesmen

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“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

By David Benjamin / Common Dreams

PARIS — As I observe, from a nation where health care is universal, simple, cheap and far more healthful that the free-market medical blackmail that afflicts and sickens the United States, I think of a question not asked.

A handful of reactionaries in the U.S. Congress are “standing on principle” against the Affordable Care Act, passed by Congress in 2010. The media wizards who cover issues of national life-and-death as though they were NASCAR events, ask lots of questions about who’s going to do what, and when, and whose ox is gonna get gored when that happens or doesn’t happen.

But the question they never ask of either side in the latest stalemate is “What principle?” What exactly are all these blowhards standing their ground for?   [Read more…]

Projected Low Turnout in Mayoral Special Election Favors Faulconer

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By Doug Porter

Two studies released this week appear to validate the decision made by big money Republican donors to boost the candidacy of City Councilman Kevin Faulconer.

A poll by Republican leaning Competitive Edge Research & Communication of 504 likely voters (Sept. 26-29) shows Faulconer running essentially even with Nathan Fletcher (26-27%, with a plus or minus margin of error of 4.4 percent).  Candidate David Alvarez was favored by 13%, Mike Aguirre got 7%, 20% of those polled said they were undecided and while 8% backed one of the seven other candidates in the race.

Following “push” polling questions, wherein surveyors read politically leading statements to respondents, support for Faulconer jumped to 34%, with Alvarez moving into second place with 22% and Fletcher support dropping to 20%.

Probable voter turnout in the Competitive Edge survey was pegged at somewhere between 35 and 40%.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Allowing ‘Unauthorized Immigrants’ to Drive in California

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By Dana Levy

Wow, was I ever amazed when I turned on the TV this morning that I had an actual news alert which  was not related to the dreaded federal shutdown. Low and behold our California Governor Brown had actually signed the bill to allow “unauthorized immigrants” to apply for California Drivers Licenses.

What made me start reflect on this, besides the obvious, is that it is the exact same issue that caused our previous democratic governor, Gray Davis, to be recalled (or impeached by the hateful) and replaced by another immigrant, Arnold The Terrible (both actor and executive). Seems like a whole lifetime ago but it was 2003. The offshoot from the recall was that it set the tone for the legalization movement of those in our country illegally and that conversation has dominated then airwaves for quite some time now.   [Read more…]

Tea Party Wet Dream Forces Shutdown of San Diego’s Miramar Air Show

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“The reign of morons began with the triumph of bullshit.”  Charles Pierce, Esquire Magazine

By Doug Porter

Over the last few days the conservative pundit class has been preaching the message that the government shutdown was much ado about nothing. A ‘slim down’ became the Fox news codeword meant to belittle the ever-growing cumulative effects of the Congressional Republican’s efforts to hold the country hostage.

Word came out this morning that this weekend’s Miramar Air Show, already truncated by sequester mandated cutbacks in military spending, would now be cancelled.  I have no doubt that the local Tea Party set will soon be announcing the closure was personally ordered by President Obama.

  [Read more…]

Outraged? Call Government Shutdown Supporters Duncan Hunter and Darrell Issa of San Diego

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We’re in Day 3 of the Federal government shutdown. If you are outraged or upset, how about calling or contacting San Diego’s Congressional members who support the shutdown?

Call Congressmen Darrell Issa and Duncan Hunter, Jr. Both are Republicans and both have consistently voted to shutdown the federal government in efforts to defund the law called the Affordable Care Act.

San Diego’s Democratic Congressional members, Susan Davis, Juan Vargas, and Scott Peters – all have supported the Obama Administration’s efforts to keep the government open.

Here’s contact info on both Darrell Issa and Duncan Hunter.   [Read more…]

Fletcher, Faulconer, Peters and the Bi-Partisan Shuffle

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By Doug Porter

For better or (mostly) worse our country runs (or doesn’t) on a two party system.

Despite the “everybody knows” wisdom that says partisanship is becoming more extreme, some of San Diego’s politicos aren’t playing that game.

Of course “everybody knows” about Nathan Fletcher, who made the transition from Republican to Independent and then Democratic Mayoral candidate in less than 500 days.

Despite those die hard partisans in both camps who try to make the point that Fletcher’s migration was somehow aberrant, I actually believe him when he says his life experiences led him to make the switch(es).

I’ve personally seen plenty of life long Republicans ditching their party as it lurches towards irrelevancy. And the declining percentage of the electorate willing to associate themselves with the likes of Tony Kvarick (locally) and Michelle Bachman (Nationally) are proof of this trend.   [Read more…]

Travelers on the Street of Dreams

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“My challenge is to finish high school as a teenage Mom”

By Anna Daniels

Once a year Teresa Gunn, artistic director and founder of Street of Dreams, stands before a full house in the City College Saville Theatre and opens the student performance with these words:

We have the highest prison population that we have ever had in the history of the country. At Street of Dreams we are not willing to put another generation of people in prison because we lack the humanity to produce a creative solution. The solution is education and community collaboration. Street of Dreams is part of the solution.

Street of Dreams has been part of that solution since its founding in 1998, when Teresa Gunn recognized that the power of story telling and arts education could provide a path out of poverty and inter-generational incarceration and addiction for young mothers who had found themselves in the juvenile justice system.   [Read more…]

Despite Government Shutdown, ObamaCare Starts Today

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Survey says nearly three fourths of the population thinks the GOP’s tactic is a bad idea

By Doug Porter

The crapola has hit the fanola.  Eight hundred thousand Americans are officially furloughed. Another million or so are being asked to come to work without pay.

Why? Because Congress passed a health care law after debating it for 18 months. The President signed the law. The Supreme Court (mostly) upheld the Constitutionality of the law. And now a group of three dozen or so extremists in the House of Representatives say “no way”.   [Read more…]

Teahadists’ Budget Bomb Ticking Down

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Local leaders fly to DC to watch truly dysfunctional government at work

By Doug Porter

There’s only one story that counts today: the confrontation on Capitol Hill over passing a continuing budget resolution allowing the government to function for another 45 days.

Mini-Mayor Todd Gloria, along with members of the City Council and a Chamber of Commerce delegation headed by former Mayor Jerry Sanders are on the Hill this week “to advocate for policies vital to the region.”  This trip has been on the books for some time—in fact it’s the same outing that former Mayor Bob Filner was uninvited from by Sanders back when reports of bad behavior surfaced.   [Read more…]

Mel Freilicher Reads from “Encyclopedia of Rebels”

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Wednesday, October 2nd at 7pm at DG Wills Book Store

By Jim Miller

San Diego City Works Press is proud to announce the publication of The Encyclopedia of Rebels by local author and UCSD writing teacher, Mel Freilicher. The book plays with the intersections between history, fiction, memoir, fantasy, and mystery. As Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rae Armantrout puts it, “You could call this both an outrageous comedy and a credible look at the world we live in.”

Mel Freilicher will read from his new book this Wednesday, at 7 PM at D.G. Wills Book Store at 7461 Girard Ave in La Jolla on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2nd at 7 pm as part of the San Diego City College International Book Fair.   [Read more…]

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…]

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