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Trump’s Border Brownshirts Already Running Amok

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The ‘gloves are off’ is a terrible thing to say to anybody with a gun and a badge

We’re already seeing glimpses of what ‘empowered’ agencies charged with immigration enforcement will look like in the Trump era, and it’s not a pretty sight.

What seems to be clear at this point is that some enforcement personnel in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol (two separate agencies, both in Homeland security) aren’t even waiting for the official go-ahead.

San Diego has been lucky–thus far– when it comes to the negative impact of recent executive orders on immigration and refugees. I suspect the reticence of the local ‘migra’ forces may have something to do with the potential for civil unrest as much as anything else.   [Read more…]

Over 100 People Celebrate Valve Turners Climate Direct Action Event in San Diego

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By Scott Starbuck/ SanDiego350

Reuters reported that on October 11, activists in four states “shook the North American energy industry.” An appreciative audience at San Diego’s First Church of the Brethren greeted them Monday February 13 with $2,300 in donations for their legal funds, repeated applause, and a standing ovation honoring their vision and courage. A donation link has been set up for those who want to support Valve Turners.

Of the group of five, Emily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, Leonard Higgins, and Michael Foster were present and spoke at the event. Ken Ward, the fifth member and first to face trial, was unable to attend due to preparing for a retrial after a jury in Mt. Vernon, Washington, refused to convict him on February 1.

San Diego was the last California stop on this leg of the Valve Turners Speaking Tour that will take them from Pacific to Atlantic in effort to awaken consciences of citizens to respond to climate reality.   [Read more…]

ACLU Sues City of San Diego, Demands SDPD Change Policy Allowing DNA Collection From Minors

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Social justice organizations, advocates and parents to convene press conference in Memorial Park on February 22

By ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties

The ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLU-SDIC) filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court against the City of San Diego. The long-standing civil rights organization seeks to change current San Diego Police Department policy allowing police officers to collect DNA samples from minors without a warrant or parental consent and challenge this unconstitutional stop.

The suit stems from a March 2016 incident during which a group of teenage boys walking in the Logan Heights neighborhood’s Memorial Community Park were unlawfully stopped and frisked by police officers. Without a warrant and without seeking their parents’ permission, the officers unlawfully detained the juveniles, including Jamie Wilson’s 16-year-old son, telling them they would be released only after they gave consent to collection of their DNA.   [Read more…]

‘Nevertheless, She Persisted.’ One Heck of a Resist Trump Tuesday

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Indivisible Gets Visible at Local Congressional Offices, National City Hearing

Mitch McConnell and his Republican friends in the United States Senate handed the resistance movement a gift on Tuesday night when they invoke an obscure rule to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she read from a letter by Coretta Scott King concerning the record of Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions.

The letter was addressed to then-Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1986. In it, King objected to Sessions nomination to be a federal judge due to his use of “the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens.” King continued, “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of this office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.”   [Read more…]

Law and Disorder at U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

In Stephen King’s novel Under the Dome, the used car salesman/second selectman of Chester’s Mill, Maine, a guy called Big Jim Rennie, had to turn to local bullies to form his police force. For those unfamiliar with the novel, the people of Chester’s Mill woke one morning to find themselves under an impermeable dome and cut off from the outside world. Published in 2009, many took the power-hungry blowhard Big Jim to be a stand-in for Dick Cheney. But it doesn’t take much re-focusing to visualize the character as a Donald Trump or perhaps a Steve Bannon, if you can ignore the rampant incompetence and only focus on the takeover.

Donald Trump, however, will not have to rely on local bullies to make up his enforcement unit. He already has at his disposal some of the most troubled law enforcement agencies in the United States, not the least of which is the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a behemoth agency that is supposed to make us think we are safer with it than without it.   [Read more…]

Prominent Democrats, Community Activists Call on Labor Leader Kasparian to Stand Down

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Four years after the Bob Filner scandal, little has changed with the leadership culture in the centers of power on the left in San Diego–namely labor and the Democratic party.

The enablers and apologists for workplace sexual improprieties, gender discrimination, and retaliation continue to use the political clout and cash flow of their organizations as a shield, preventing them from answering for their behavior or learning from their mistakes.

Engaged women are leading the resistance to what portends to be an era of oppression and repression. They can’t fight the good fight locally or nationally if women within this movement are subjugated by abusive men in powerful positions. They cannot be expected to roll up their sleeves to make changes only to realize the institutional power they need amounts to more of the same.   [Read more…]

A Performance for Social Justice: The Life and Times of Patricia Prewitt

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COUNT TIME! — A Theater Production

Yuko Kurahashi

Since 1986 Patty has been incarcerated with no hope of parole until 2036. She is currently locked away in the Women’s Eastern Reception Diagnostic Correctional Center (WERDCC) in Vandalia, Missouri. Drawing upon her interviews with Patty, her daughter, lawyers, friends, a sister inmate, as well as portraying the prosecutor in his own words from his book: Practice To Deceive, Townsend crafted and has performed the piece to raise public awareness of the injustice Patty and her family continue to endure. The piece also addresses how other incarcerated individuals suffer injustice under our punitive criminal justice system.

Townsend met Patty Prewitt through the late Daniel H. Kohl, who served for many years on the board of directors of St. Louis’s Prison Performing Arts organization. In 2013, Kohl approached Townsend at a fundraiser for the Actor’s Theatre of St. Louis.   [Read more…]

Voter Fraud Claims: Amping Up the Crazy With an Eye Towards 2018

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There is no greater threat to democracy in the United States than voter fraud. I am not, however, referring to the ballot box stuffing variety envisioned by the purveyors of online paranoia.

It’s the logic behind the claims on this subject being made by the President and his minions that counts. They all lead to the same conclusion: some people’s votes are more valuable than others.

Donald Trump admitted as much during an astonishing interview with ABC News by asserting that none of the claimed fraudulent voters cast ballots on his behalf. Nevermind that arrests in the 2016 elections involving actual presidential ballots involved people trying to cast votes for the GOP candidate.   [Read more…]

ACLU Announces First Legal Action On Trump Conflicts Of Interest

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By ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken legal action seeking documents on conflicts of interest and violations of the Constitution and federal law posed by President Trump’s and his family’s business interests. The organization also released a Seven-Point Plan laying out how it intends to challenge other Trump policies and protect the Constitution.

The efforts are made possible by the organization’s new Constitution Defense Fund, which was established following the election.

The first legal action is a Freedom of Information Act request asking several government agencies to turn over all documents relating to President Trump’s actual or potential conflicts of interest to his business and family connections.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Women’s March: Part of a World-Wide Human Rights Movement

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In 1913, thousands of women took to the streets of Washington DC on the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration calling for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. More than twenty parade floats, nine bands, and four mounted brigades followed activist Inez Milholland riding on a white horse marching from the U.S. Capitol toward the Treasury Building.

Despite physical attacks by angry spectators hospitalizing more than 100 women, the parade, organized by Alice Paul and the National American Woman Suffrage Association, finished the route.   [Read more…]

Dissent Is Patriotic. It’s Also a Powerful Antidote to Propaganda.

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By Bethany Woolman / Speak Freely / ACLU
“If you’re to be called a communist every time you stand up for basic American rights and freedoms, what’s likely to happen? Will you be silent? And if so, is this what the House Committee on Un-American Activities is really after — a silent, submissive, un-protesting America?” -Ernest Besig, “Operation Correction,” 1961

Fifty-five years ago this January, the ACLU of Northern California was busy filling orders from across the country for copies of its recently produced film, “Operation Correction.” The film was a response to a piece of Red Scare propaganda, “Operation Abolition,” which was produced by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and depicted civil liberties activists in San Francisco as violent “communist agents” bent on destroying the fabric of America.

In those days, the federal government was deeply concerned with the political affiliations of ordinary Americans — if those affiliations were left-leaning.   [Read more…]

Grand Theft, GOP-Style: Art Today, Civil Rights Tomorrow

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Trump’s day of triumph is rapidly approaching, and it has become clear his administration’s policies will amount to open season on the assets of the United States.

Congressman Duncan Hunter couldn’t wait for the inauguration and lifted a painting that displeased him from a Congressional art exhibit. Also, House members quietly changed a rule last week allowing them to hide records from future ethics probes. (More on these later in the story)

Not all assets are measured by monetary value, and this is today’s big story. In a hearing room originally used for inquiries into the sinking of the Titanic and the Teapot Dome Scandal, Senate Republicans are lobbing softballs at Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions in the hope they can kick-start the erosion of civil and human rights in this country.   [Read more…]

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