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Many Battles Being Fought Over Climate Change

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By Doug Porter

The State of California Water Resources Control Board says residential water conservation is not working and there are rumblings about adopting permanent, rather than emergency water conservation measures.

Former Todd Gloria staffer Nicole Capretz has started a non-profit group to keep pressure on the City of San Diego as the Climate Action Plan moves from concept to reality. Activist groups, led by the local chapter of 350.org and the Environmental Health Coalition staged a rally in Balboa Park on Monday to urge local leaders to move decisively.

And a two-decade-long study by scientists with the University of Southern California offers up proof that declining air pollution is measurably improving children’s health.

There’s all this and much more in today’s news wrapup…   [Read more…]

Obama Task Force Calls for Significant Changes to Policing in America

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Report recommends that law enforcement report shootings and other incidents of police brutality to federal government

By Lauren McCauley/ Common Dreams

Rights groups and others are welcoming the release of a report by the president’s policing task force on Monday, saying that the policy recommendations are the best chance the White House has for improving the relationship between law enforcement agencies and the communities they are meant to protect and serve.

The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing was established in the wake of recent police killings of people of color in an attempt to build trust between citizens and law enforcement. The Interim Report (pdf) calls for increased transparency around incidents of police brutality, an emphasis on de-escalation, and policies that prohibit police profiling and discrimination of any kind, among other things.   [Read more…]

Not the News in San Diego: Homeless Human Shot and Killed (Video)

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By Doug Porter

A shocking confrontation caught on video involving a mentally ill homeless man in Los Angeles who was gunned down as police tried to evict him from a street-side tent is getting nationwide news coverage.

The Washington Post, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Seattle Times and of course the Los Angeles Times all covered the story. But you’ll have to dig to find it at UT-San Diego. It’s not in the today’s edition. (You can find it online if the paper’s search engine is working.)

This video cuts to the chase on three major issues facing this country; how we treat the mentally ill, our homeless population and the willingness of police to use firepower over brain power.   [Read more…]

Justice Comes to Mississippi

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Sentencing begins for the ten white teenagers who beat and murdered African-American James Craig Anderson in 2011

By Federal District Court Judge Carlton Reeves

Editor Note: James Craig Anderson was attacked and murdered by a mob of teenagers who went out for the purpose of terrorizing African-Americans. They surrounded Anderson in a parking lot and ran over him with their pick-up truck. His death has been described as a Jim Crow style lynching. In the words of William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It is not even past.” The following is Judge Reeves’ complete remarks at the sentencing of the first three of the teenagers on February 10, 2015.

One of my former history professors, Dennis Mitchell, recently released a history book entitled, A New History of Mississippi. “Mississippi,” he says, “is a place and a state of mind. The name evokes strong reactions from those who live here and from those who do not, but who think they know something about its people and their past.”   [Read more…]

Firing a Mom Because She’s Breastfeeding Is Sex Discrimination

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By Galen Sherwin, ACLU Blog of Rights

A few months ago, I posted about Angela Ames, the Nationwide Insurance worker who alleged that she was denied a place to pump breast milk when she returned to work from maternity leave. When she protested, Angela was coerced into resigning by her supervisor, who told her she should “just go home and be with your babies”.

In January, the Supreme Court sent her the same message – go home ­– rejecting her petition for a review of the dismissal of her case. The denial of her petition effectively means the end of the line for her case.   [Read more…]

The War on Terror Comes Home: Crime and Punishment in the 21st Century

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By Doug Porter

A report in today’s Guardian about a “black site” used by the Chicago police department to keep suspects off the grid for extended periods of time provides the starting point for today’s column. I’m going to weave three ongoing stories together to try to better understand what’s going on.

Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times says next to nothing is happening with a promised crackdown on the use of excessive force with the US Border Patrol. 

And the prison industrial complex in California is pushing back against reforms instituted through Proposition 47, which essentially decriminalized drug possession for personal use and reduced other petty crimes from felony to misdemeanor status.    [Read more…]

America’s Finest City Can’t Be Bothered with Slum Lords

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By Doug Porter

A recalcitrant landlord at the top of a review of 2013 code compliance complaints in San Diego is the focus of a story written by Megan Burks and published jointly by KPBS/Voice of San Diego.

It’s a horrifying account, replete with tales of mold, asthma, raw sewage and armies of vermin. And a city government seemingly incapable of doing anything about it.

Landlord Bankim Shah owns nearly 90 properties in the San Diego area along with managing apartments owned by others. One-third of the 62 formal complaints filed against him since 2001 are, according to the story, “for conditions so bad state law says no one should be forced to live in them.”

We learn that Shah has been to court exactly once–in “2011 for renting a building to a medical marijuana dispensary.”   [Read more…]

Can You Imagine a Supreme Court Composed Exclusively of Black Women or Latinas?

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How about one composed exclusively of black lesbians?

By Melissa Harris-Lacewell/ The Arena, Politico

The Supreme Court figures prominently in one of my favorite thought experiments for students in my politics courses.

I try to get the students to think about the Supreme Court as an institution across time rather than as a static entity. Therefore, when we think about race and gender representation on the court we should take the court as a whole, stretching back to our nation’s founding, rather than as a snapshot from the contemporary moment. When we do this we realize that although the court looked pretty diverse when it had two white women and an African American man represented, it is a nearly entirely white, male institution across its whole history.

Despite its racial and gender homogeneity we believe that the legal reasoning and precedents set by those earlier courts are valid. …   [Read more…]

New Report on Lynching Reveals Sinister Legacy of ‘Racial Terrorism’ in America

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Capital punishment and current racial injustice in US are ‘direct descendants of lynching’

By Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

Capital punishment and ongoing racial injustice in the United States are “direct descendants” of lynching, charges a new study, which found that the pre-World War II practice of “racial terrorism” has had a much more profound impact on race relations in America than previously acknowledged.

The most comprehensive work done on lynching to date, the investigation unearthed a total of 3,959 racially-motivated lynchings during the period between Reconstruction and World War II, which is at least 700 more killings than previously reported.   [Read more…]

The People’s Brief: Your Chance to Support Marriage Equality at the Supreme Court    

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By Doug Porter

The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in the coming weeks for a crucial marriage equality case, and is expected to resolve the issue of national marriage equality once and for all in a ruling this summer.

The Human Rights Campaign, a national organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the United States has crafted a unique opportunity for proponents to sign on to an amici curiae brief in support of the petitioners.

Roberta Kaplan, the civil rights attorney who won a landmark Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor striking down Section 3 of the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, is the author and lead counsel on the brief.   [Read more…]

Looking for a Way to Halt Repeated Attacks by Vicious Dogs

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By Lori Saldaña

Imagine living next door to a dangerous, aggressive bully. Sometimes you can hear him outside in his yard, over the low fence that separates your property, fighting and scaring members of his own household. Sometimes you can hear them cry out in pain and fear when he attacks.

If you see him walking around the neighborhood you cross the street to avoid getting too close since you know how potentially dangerous he is.

Now imagine this bully attacks a member of your family- not once, but twice. He inflicts painful injuries that require over $1000 in medical bills that are not covered by insurance.   [Read more…]

Yes, ISIS Burned a Man Alive: White Americans Did the Same Thing to Black People by the Thousands

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By Chauncey Devega / Daily Kos

ISIS burned Muadh al Kasasbeh, a captured Jordian fighter pilot, to death. They doused him with an accelerant. His captors set him on fire. Muadh al Kasasbeh desperately tried to put out the flames. ISIS recorded Muadh al Kasasbeh’s immolation, produced a video designed to intimidate their enemies, and then circulated it online.

ISIS’s burning alive of Muadh al Kasasbeh has been denounced as an act of savagery, barbarism, and wanton cruelty–one from the “dark ages” and not of the modern world.

American Exceptionalism blinds those who share its gaze to uncomfortable facts and truths about their own country.   [Read more…]

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