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Black History Month Event Honoring African American Law Enforcement Officers Caught Up in Local Politics

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Here’s what we know: An event honoring past and present police officers planned for Saturday, February 24 at the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation didn’t happen as scheduled.

The keynote speaker for the event was to be public defender Geneviéve Jones-Wright, whose candidacy for County District Attorney has provoked a strongly negative response from the law enforcement establishment.

City Council candidate Monica Montgomery and black community activists have announced plans to address the circumstances surrounding the Black History Month event at San Diego City Hall prior to a Council meeting that includes confirmation of a new Chief of Police.      [Read more…]

Has Rick Gates Had His ‘Queen for a Day’ Meeting With the Mueller Team? | Video Worth Watching

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Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney discusses with Rachel Maddow the significance of reports that Rick Gates, former Trump campaign staffer, has had a “Queen for a Day” interview with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. If true, this would likely mean a third co-operating witness for the team.

(Plus bonus archival clip of actual “Queen for a Day” episode!)   [Read more…]

“Money is Speech”: The Twisted Logic the Supreme Court Will Likely Use to Screw American Workers

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In the wake of my last column on the agenda of the billionaire backers of the Janus vs. AFSCME case soon to be heard by the Supreme Court, the Los Angeles Times published a solid piece that outlined the broader context and suspect reasoning guiding this shameless attack on American labor…

While it’s abundantly clear why progressives should be disturbed by this naked power grab, not all the dissent is coming from the left.  Even those with little sympathy for the Democratic Party have noted how brazenly this case distorts the notion of “free speech…”

It is also unlikely that most Americans if they had a say in the matter, would agree that “money is speech” or that there was any noble right at stake when the Court ruled in favor of unlimited corporate campaign spending in the Citizens United case.  One might also reasonably assume that not many Americans are too sanguine about the corrosive effect this rigging of our political system has had on our democracy.       [Read more…]

There’s More to the ‘SDPD Officer Punched in Barrio Logan’ Story

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News accounts of an arrest where a San Diego Police officer was punched in the face on Saturday, February 3, didn’t tell the whole story. 

Video of the punching incident furnished by Irate Productions to the Southwestern Sun college newspaper show another, more disturbing, version of what happened.

While I think it’s always a bad idea to punch somebody with a badge and a gun, the video shows the officer (who has yet to be named) starting the confrontation by hitting with a police baton Frederick Jefferson as he backs away. And the incident was completely unrelated to what was going on that day in Chicano Park. Also, there was no ‘violence’ at the rallies.    [Read more…]

Trump Prepares to Release the Memo—and Bring the Constitutional Crisis to a Boil

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

On Wednesday, the FBI took the extraordinary step of creating an unsigned document—a document in the name of the whole agency, rather than any individual—opposing the release of the Trump–Nunes memo. This followed a visit to the White House from both FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to personally oppose the release. And overnight, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff discovered that the memo Devin Nunes gave to Trump, was not the same as the one that was voted on in the House.   [Read more…]

45 Years After Roe v. Wade, How Far Have We Come When It Comes To Abortion And The Right To Privacy?

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By Kelly Macias / Daily Kos

January 22 marked the 45th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision which, through a Supreme Court ruling, legalized abortion in all 50 states. It has been an uphill battle to maintain that right ever since then. Though conservatives have tried and failed at numerous attempts to repeal the law nationally, they have been very successful at passing restrictive local laws that limit a woman’s access to contraception and abortion.As Mary Ziegler in the New York Times reminds us, though Roe is often solely associated with abortion, the law actually is about something larger.   [Read more…]

Call Lethal Injection the Vile Torture It Is

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In a New Year’s Eve display of liberal newspaper death penalty abolition harmony – buoyed by the release of the Death Penalty Information Center’s (DPIC) annual report evidencing another year in the long-observable trend of capital punishment’s disuse and disfavor in America – both the Washington Post and New York Times’s editorial boards published opinion pieces arguing for an end to what the Times called a “cruel and pointless” practice; one that is “savage, racially biased, arbitrary,” and which “the developed world agreed to reject…long ago.”

On her well-followed Twitter account, intrepid anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean opined that the Times “opened the New Year with a bang: a full-throated exhortation against the death penalty. The editorial hit all the right notes.” While I hardly disagree with Sister Helen on anything concerning death penalty abolition – and, despite all the truthful and pointed invectives the Times’s editorial board did skillfully use to highlight capital punishment’s moral depravity – I still preferred when newspaper editors used the word ‘torture’ to describe to the American people what lethal injection really is.   [Read more…]

San Diego Politics Remain Poisoned as Labor Leader Mickey Kasparian Gets Sanitized Via ‘Due Process’

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Former UFCW Local 135 employees Isabel Vasquez and Sandy Naranjo have settled civil cases involving sexual harassment and political retaliation claims against labor leader Mickey Kasparian.

Since the initial claims were made by the women Kasparian has left (or was removed by the AFL-CIO, depending on who is speaking) the leadership of the local labor council, but remains as president of the UFCW.

He created a breakaway labor coalition whose financial clout discouraged attempts by activists to pressure the Democratic party and many local politicians to distance themselves.   [Read more…]

Time to Escalate? First-Ever Rights of Nature Lawsuit Dismissed

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By Will Falk

Our first-in-the-nation lawsuit seeking personhood for the Colorado River was dismissed. After the Colorado Attorney General filed a motion to dismiss and threatened sanctions against attorney Jason Flores-Williams for the unforgivable act of requesting rights for nature, Flores-Williams withdrew our case.

When I agreed to serve as a next friend, or guardian, of the Colorado River, I saw the opportunity as a win-win. Either, we would win the lawsuit and the Colorado River would gain a powerful new legal tool to protect herself. Or, the lawsuit would be defeated proving that the American legal system privileges corporate rights to destroy the natural world over the natural world’s right to exist.

I knew it was highly unlikely that corporations, the courts, and the Colorado Attorney General would let rights of nature gain traction in American law. I wanted to be there, when the case failed, to remind everyone who invested hope in our cause that lawsuits are not the only way change is made.

I do not want this essay to come off like I am saying “I told you so.” I am heartbroken. A small part of me clung to the hope that Flores-Williams could resist the threats, that the Colorado Attorney General would, at least, litigate the case on the merits, and that the legal system would do the right thing. This hope, of course, was misguided.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: ‘Non-Partisan’ Forum Slanted for GOP Candidate in District Attorney Race

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By Terrie Best / OB Rag

While following local politics I was surprised to find intelligent people right here in urban San Diego who will vote against their own interests. This particular anomaly is one I’d long ago set aside for white people in the rural south – the ones who are in bad need of dental check-ups but nevertheless want Obama Care repealed.

When I hear of communities targeted by law enforcement, I assume their leaders will be savvy enough to seek out and oppose the perpetrators of racist practices in the justice system.

Recently, what I saw in the name of party line politics is folks actually stacking the deck against those who would make life better for people of color and therefore, all of us. This show of self-sabotage was carried out all while pretending to lead without bias.

I’m talking about the Latino American Political Association, which hosted the District Attorney Forum last week and afterward endorsed Republican Summer more-of-the-same Stephan. LAPA also disregarded the public who were only trying to do what LAPA was offering: to learn more about the two DA candidates at the forum.   [Read more…]

County Jail Deaths Don’t Matter in San Diego

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The decision of the county’s police oversight group to not look into the deaths of twenty-odd human beings should serve as a reminder of how true justice is a much rarer commodity than most people realize.

As part of my research into the upcoming elections for County Sheriff and District Attorney, it’s been made clear to me that oversight of the agencies vested with the power of arrest and the administration of justice is largely an illusion.

On one level this is about the frailties of humans; peer pressure to maintain the integrity of the tribe in the face of constant threats. The unspeakable cruelties of injustice are seemingly compartmentalized away from public view so the ongoing–and often misguided–crusade against crime can continue.   [Read more…]

The Federalist Society—Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court | Video Worth Watching

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Where do Trump’s picks for judges come from? What do Robert Bork, Ted Cruz and Antonin Scalia have in common? Ever heard of the Federalist Society? Samantha Bee takes a peek at what has been called the Conservative Pipeline to the Supreme Court.   [Read more…]

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