I give Congressman Duncan and Margaret Hunter credit: They’ve got some kind of nerve.
Hunter’s campaign has published a lengthy statement calling the effort to indict him a “witch-hunt.”
I’ve broken his statement up into small bits, juxtaposed with paragraphs from the 48-page indictment. Sometimes the two pieces are related. Sometimes they’re not. It’s a long, but worthy read. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wonder how this guy looks in the mirror in the morning.
Bonus: Some Juicy Snips from the Indictment
Congressman Duncan Hunter is refusing to step down from his assignments on the Armed Services, Education, and the Workforce and Transportation committees, according to Politico.
Following the release of a 48-page indictment, House Majority Leader Paul Ryan urged the 50th District Congressman to resign his committee assignments until the matter was resolved.
Republicans in the House of Representatives are now planning to take action to remove Hunter in a steering committee meeting slated for September 4. The full GOP conference is expected to ratify this the following day, and shortly thereafter it will go to the House floor, where it will be made official.
[Read more…]
Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret are expected to be arraigned on Thursday morning in Federal court.
A 48-page grand jury indictment accuses the couple of diverting more than $250,000 in campaign funds to family vacations, school tuition, theater tickets and other personal expenses.
They are facing charges of wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy, resulting from a more than year-long investigation by the Department of Justice. [Read more…]
Republican Diane Harkey, the Darrell Issa-endorsed candidate in the 49th Congressional District received the blessings of President Donald Trump via Twitter late yesterday.
Nobody should be happier about this news than her Democratic opponent, Mike Levin, although his campaign showed remarkable restraint in responding to the announcement.
Polling by the Public Policy Institute of California three months ago showed just 39% of voters in the two counties included in the district approve of the job Trump is doing as president. Hillary Clinton won the 49th by seven points over Trump, and Issa’s re-election margin was the closest of any House incumbent in 2016.
[Read more…]
Editor’s Note: The San Diego Free Press has asked three dozen candidates in key electoral contests from throughout the county for submissions explaining why they think progressive-leaning voters should consider voting for them. Many of these candidates are running in down-ballot contests often overlooked by voters.
I am challenging Gary Kreep in the upcoming November election for Seat 37 – California Superior Court Judge. This race stands out as the only one of six county-wide races from the June primary to advance to the general election in November. No matter where you live in San Diego County this race will appear on your ballot.
I began running for this seat when I saw the Commission on Judicial Performance had censured Judge Kreep in August of 2017 for committing over two dozen violations of the Cannons on Judicial Ethics that govern the behavior of judges in our local courts. Though these ethical violations were varied the ones that caught my attention were those involving unprofessional and disrespectful treatment toward women and minorities in court by Judge Kreep. I was already aware that Judge Kreep had participated in a lawsuit to prohibit President Obama’s name from appearing on the ballot in 2012 premised on the debunked theory that our nation’s first black president’s birth certificate lacked authenticity. This was known commonly as the birther movement. Once I became aware of the nature of Judge Kreep’s ethics violations it confirmed my suspicions regarding his worldview and made it clear to me he needed to be removed from his position of authority in our community. [Read more…]
Beto O’Rourke fields a tough question during a town hall type meeting. And he does it with grace and sincerity. (h/t to Doug P.)
BONUS VIDEO: This 37 minute Facebook campaign video starts off with a minute or so of Beto skateboarding in the parking lot of a Whataburger. The dude can move. [Read more…]
By Kerry Eleveld / Daily Kos
The results of an Ohio special election last week that many viewed as a harbinger for November—and that should have been a gimme for Republicans—aren’t even final yet. And yet even as the GOP candidate in Ohio’s 12th congressional district, Troy Balderson, clings to a lead of less than one percent over Democrat Danny O’Connor, a Washington narrative is developing that the Democratic advantage could all fall apart under the weight of either longtime liberal Nancy Pelosi of California or progressive phenom Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, depending on which article you read.
It’s preposterous. As has been widely reported, House Democrats need to win 23 seats to regain control of the lower chamber and they have some 69 target districts that are less red than OH-12 and ripe for the picking. And yet there’s some scary myth out there that Pelosi’s too establishment and Ocasio-Cortez is too progressive and their mere presence is killing Democratic chances this fall.
Seriously, is this a joke? Just take note, they’re both women and supposedly they’re both the death knell for Democratic success this fall. The New York Times reported last week, for instance, that calls to “Abolish ICE,” partly led by Ocasio-Cortez, had “many Democrats fretting in competitive races.” In the meantime, reporters can’t seem to get enough of perseverating over some 50 Democratic House candidates who say they won’t back Pelosi for speaker if they’re elected or re-elected—something she actually encouraged them to do. Wow, it turns out Democrats truly have the big tent Republicans had been lauded for in theory for decades, but now that conservative advantage has morphed into a liberal liability and Democrats are doooomed! [Read more…]
By Cory Briggs
Something really good for San Diegans happened last Thursday: The rabid, asinine pursuit of a convention center expansion on the waterfront hit a concrete wall at 100 miles per hour. But that wasn’t the best part about Kevin Faulconer’s last-minute effort to put a “citizens’ initiative” on the November 2018 ballot after an “unprecedented coalition” failed in its “Herculean effort” to gather enough signatures to clear the mark.
For San Diegans, the best thing that could have happened was for The Establishment – the usual special-interest suspects on the right and the left who run City Hall – to break into a thousand tiny pieces. That is indeed what happened. Hallelujah!
I’m sure that my Twitter feed and e-mail inbox will start blowing up as soon as people read that last paragraph, if not before they finish this one. I’m going to be accused of being anti-worker because, as those who had front-row seats to The Establishment’s demise last week know, some of the biggest names in San Diego’s labor movement were part of the “unprecedented coalition” that crashed and burned. Many of them I consider good friends; outside City Hall, if I needed the shirts off their backs, they’d give them to me without hesitation (and vice-versa). [Read more…]
Last week was a rough week for the status quo in San Diego. The (mostly) unspoken private-public partnership between land developers and local elected officials couldn’t get it done. Not once, but twice.
A faux ‘citizens initiative’ run by hoteliers, and assorted Mayoral toadies won’t be on the November ballot. Visions of economic growth centered on convention center expansion ended amid finger pointing and raised middle fingers. Grift, incompetence and a failure to understand public weariness with past promises of economic benefits trickling down from the schemes of the rich and famous all played in role in the effort’s spectacular failure.
The days of San Diego County being a Republican enclave may be numbered. A Board of Supervisors’ attempt to deep-six a union-sponsored voting measure made its way back onto the November ballot, thanks to a judge’s ruling affirming that the 100,000+ people who’d signed petitions didn’t do so with the intention of fostering yet another pointless study.
[Read more…]
Another example of a winning Democratic primary campaign ad. Although not the candidate endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Davids is still running on a campaign of affordable health care, quality education, economic opportunity, gun safety and environmental responsibility. If successful in the general election she will represent a number of firsts: the first lesbian congresswoman from Kansas, one of the first Native American women in Congress, and the first congresswoman with a mixed martial arts history. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill candidate. [Read more…]
Pow! Doink! Yikes! FacePalm!
The latest grand plan for saving San Diego from the shame of not having a big enough Convention Center flopped on Wednesday.
Yes! For a Better San Diego, the coalition seeking an increase in a hotel tax, failed to get enough signatures for its ‘citizen’s initiative’ to qualify for the November 2018 ballot.
San Diego City Clerk Elizabeth Maland reported a random count by the county Registrar of Voters triggered the requirement for a full verification of all signatures. Such a count would take up to 30 days to complete, causing the proposed measure to miss Friday’s deadline for placing anything on the ballot. [Read more…]
There were primary elections in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington on Tuesday. And a special election in Ohio for a traditionally Republican House seat.
It was a big night for labor and an even bigger night for women running for office.
While I wouldn’t bet the farm on the long-term significance of elections held mid-summer, on balance it was a good night for those of us rooting for Democrats come November. Team Blue had a lot of wins and a few close losses. What encourages me is the hard work of the campaigns and the resulting voter turnout. [Read more…]
