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Dissenting Voices Emerge in San Diego Politics

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The cheering for the city administration’s Rebuild San Diego plan wasn’t quite as loud as expected yesterday, as critics from both the right and the left made their discontent known. Mayor Faulconer held a press conference yesterday in front of the construction in progress for a new library in Skyline Heights, urging the city council to place the plan before the voters in June.

The Times of San Diego reported that the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, a group known for its advocacy of conservative fiscal positions, was skeptical about Councilmember Mark Kersey’s ballot proposal to budget billions for infrastructure needs. The SDCTA offered up a list of suggestions, saying they were wary of ballot-box budgeting.

Councilmember David Alvarez offered up an alternative infrastructure proposal with a more aggressive timeline of ten years relying on a combination of property tax increment, debt service savings, and use of general fund savings realized through efficiencies.   [Read more…]

Dems Iowa Town Hall: Political Revolution vs Building on Obama’s Legacy

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Both candidates say they have the better judgment to be president as the primary season begins.

By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet

The hope of the campaign trail and the pragmatism of governing clashed at an Iowa town hall meeting Monday night, as both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton each said that they had the better judgment and experience to be the 2016 Democratic nominee and nation’s next president.

It was an impressive display of two strong candidates, who, despite sharing many goals such as lessening the many forms of inequality afflicting the country, are offering decidedly different paths to achieve them. Sanders called for a political and economic revolution, where the money to meet many of America’s needs would come from confronting the wealthiest interests and using the full force of federal government to redistribute that money to benefit middle and working classes.   [Read more…]

Whither 2016 Ballot Measures?: The Oracle Jerry Brown Weighs In

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As I noted in my New Year’s column, many in California’s labor and progressive circles had high hopes for ballot measures extending Proposition 30’s taxes on the rich to fully fund education and for raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. But it did not take long for Governor Jerry Brown to rain on his presumed allies’ parade.

With regard to the Proposition 30 extension, the fear had been that competing measures being pushed by warring camps in SEIU and their allies in labor and the health care industry might both make the ballot and sink each other. Then a compromise measure was proposed that would continue the Prop. 30 taxes on the rich while letting the sales taxes expire with the new revenue funding education and health care for the poor AND keeping the measure temporary—through 2030 in this case.   [Read more…]

It’s Official: Rising Global Temperatures Set Record in 2015

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The numbers have been crunched, and the results are in: independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirm Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880.

All in all, global temperatures in 2015 rose by 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit over the 20th-century average. Last year’s temperatures surpassed the 2014 record by a 0.23-degree margin. Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been greater than the old record by this much.

These observations were confirmed by scientists at Great Britain’s Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.   [Read more…]

The Absurdities and Alternative Realities of Republican Politics

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The Republican political arena has become the theater of the absurd largely thanks to the emergence of Donald Trump as the new standard bearer of the Republican Party. He has stood all the rules on their heads and made a mockery out of political correctness. Somehow this has breathed fresh air into the stodgy world of Republican memes and mantras.

For example, let’s take the birther controversy which the Donald was a big part of a few years ago when he and others made an attempt to prove that President Obama was not a “natural born citizen” as required by the Constitution in order to be President. In fact, as Trump and others maintained, Obama was born in Kenya. Turns out not to be true.

Then enter Ted Cruz and The Donald is up to his old tricks maintaining that Cruz is not a natural born citizen since he was born in Canada.   [Read more…]

Dems Divisions Define Debate: Did Bernie Win the Battle and Lose the War?

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There’s a fine line between Hatin’ on Hillary and Feelin’ the Bern. In Charleston, South Carolina the candidates at the fourth Democratic presidential debate tried to not cross that line. It was heated. It was hyperbolic. But it wasn’t hateful.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touted the legacies of the Obama administration. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said much more was needed and railed against the billionaire class. And former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley did his best to get a word in edgewise.

There’s a lot of bullshit to wade through in the aftermath of last night’s South Carolina showdown, but let me get the obvious stuff out of the way: Bernie Sanders is my guy. Did he win? Who cares? I thought all the Democrats on stage presented themselves as reasonable people, providing a sharp contrast to the conspiracy-driven drivel dominating GOP debates.   [Read more…]

“The Big Short” and Bernie’s Plan to Bust Up Wall Street

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By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org

If you haven’t yet seen “The Big Short” – directed and co-written by Adam McKay, based on the non-fiction prize-winning book by Michael Lewis about the housing and credit bubble that triggered the Great Recession — I recommend you do so.

Not only is the movie an enjoyable (if that’s the right word) way to understand how the big banks screwed millions of Americans out of their homes, savings, and jobs – and then got bailed out by taxpayers. It’s also a lesson in why they’re on the way to doing all this again – and how their political power continues to erode laws designed to prevent another crisis and to shield their executives from any accountability.

Most importantly, the movie shows why Bernie Sanders’s plan to break up the biggest banks and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act (separating investment from commercial banking) is necessary – and why Hillary Clinton’s more modest plan is inadequate.   [Read more…]

What Mayor Kevin Faulconer Bought Into When He Endorsed Marco Rubio

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You know things are getting bad when Howard Kurtz at Fox News says Republicans are freaking out over The Donald. The billionaire reality show host has disrupted the hopes of the conservative elite of a youngish version of Saint Reagan to preside over the final dismemberment of the New Deal.

Kurtz: “At family dinners and New Year’s parties, in conference calls and at private lunches, longtime Republicans are expressing a growing fear that the coming election could be shattering for the party, or reshape it in ways that leave it unrecognizable.”

Given that the rising popularity of Senator Ted Cruz is also distasteful to the party faithful, his colleague Marco Rubio is emerging as the next great white hope. To that end, coteries of conventional conservatives have been rolled out as campaign co-chairs in several states, including San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer as one of seven California surrogates for the Florida Republican.   [Read more…]

Bernie Sanders: ‘Greed Is Not Good’

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By United States Senator Bernie Sanders / Common Dreams

The American people are catching on. They understand that something is profoundly wrong when, in our country today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent and when the 20 richest people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans – half of our population. They know that the system is rigged when the average person is working longer hours for lower wages, while 58 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent.

They also know that a handful of people on Wall Street have extraordinary power over the economic and political life of our country.   [Read more…]

Bottomless Pit of Right-Wing Lies Continues as City Pension Reform Scheme Loses Appeal

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Over the last few days we’ve heard, via the Union-Tribune and the Wall Street Journal’s free marketeers, a tale of woe arising from the ruling of a state agency holding that the city of San Diego violated state law by not negotiating with employee unions over a 2012 ballot measure that eliminated guaranteed pension benefits for most city employees.

Now we’re being told that greedy unions have circumvented the will of the voters. Talk-show host Carl DeMaio says the agency making this determination is a “kangaroo court.”

Then-Mayor Jerry Sanders worked hand-in-glove with local right-wing politicos to create and sell a “reform” program promising to save taxpayers untold millions of dollars. They lied, they cheated, and when they were called on it, said “so what?”   [Read more…]

Top 10 Political Hopes for 2016

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It’s a new year and a big one for politics. As grim as 2015 was in many respects, this time of year begs for hope, and while I have a soft spot for the utopian, there are a few things that very well could happen that would bring some real tangible good to peoples’ lives and the planet. So here is my pragmatic political wish list for 2016:

1) That Donald Trump actually wins the Republican Presidential nomination and brings the entire Republican Party down when the sizable majority of Americans who hate his ideas vote out the party up and down the ticket….   [Read more…]

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