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The Starting Line – We’re Number Three! San Diego’s Homeless Population Soars

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A report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development documents San County’s homeless population as the third largest and among the fastest growing in the United States.

While the number of homeless fell by nearly 6% nationally, San Diego’s increased by 6.1% over the past year. The report indicated that there were 10,013 homeless people living in our region. Only New York and Los Angeles had more people living on the streets. And LA showed the largest decrease nationally.

Come inside for more of today’s daily news digest…   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Will the NRA Advocate Bringing Along Your Weapons While Christmas Shopping?

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The news this morning is dominated by stories about a man in Oregon who wandered into a shopping mall dressed in camouflage and starting firing off rounds, killing two shoppers. Eventually, police told the news media, he was ‘neutralized’, which turns out to be policespeak for ‘he killed himself.’

Enough already, I say. There isn’t much we can do about that young man’s mental illness in retrospect, but there is plenty that can be done about the people enabling unfettered access to firearms. I say its time we scare those cockroaches out from under their rocks and take a close look at the damage they’ve wrought on our society.

Mind you, this little rant is not about gun control. That’s a subject that requires a little more nuanced conversation, one that’s impossible as long as people tolerate the pinheads that make up the leadership of the NRA.

I’m talking about the simply outrageous crap that gets passed off in the name of defending our “Second Amendment Rights”. While the tinfoil set has been stockpiling ammunition and sending mass emails to AOL accounts about the Obama administration’s plans to enforce a mythical United Nations mandate that will take everybody’s guns away, the gun lobby has been busy making sure that there are no reasonable (or discussions about) restrictions on firearms.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – San Diego GOP Sets Out to Test the Definition of Insanity

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San Diego Republicans, in an attempt to prove that they really aren’t the ‘anti-science’ party are conducting a field trial designed to prove the veracity of the commonly used definition of insanity.  You know, the quip that goes, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

A press release issued yesterday proudly announced that, on the heels of getting their asses handed to them in 2012, the local Republican Party branch is sticking with the same management team.   Heh, heh. Quote:

Preparing to take advantage of mid-term election opportunities, the Republican Party of San Diego County tonight elected its leadership team for the 2014 election cycle.

  [Read more…]

Be of good cheer — are you nuts?

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By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

For some years, I’ve collected quips from folks who spurn “the holidays.” Their reasons vary. For some it’s an idiopathic condition, a chronic case of hostility or melancholy. For others, it’s situational, a recent loss, a yucky family member foisting him- or herself into the otherwise peaceful nativity scene, or the like. These quotable Grinches produced, among many others, the following tidbits of holiday cheer — but first, a note: Read no further if foul language gives you the vapors.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Potential Supremes Gay Rights Rulings Reverberate

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The decision by the Supreme Court on Friday to hear arguments on two cases relevant to gay rights (Defense of Marriage Act & Calif. Proposition 8) continues to reverberate around the United States. Although no decision is likely until early next summer, talking heads around the nation used the weekend press to contemplate the likely outcomes and their potential impact.

The San Francisco Chronicle highlighted the nervousness many have about any potential decision. The New York Times marveled at the speed that same sex marriage issues were moving through the courts, noting that other major issues had often taken decades to get a hearing. And many newspapers around the country featured articles about couples in Washington State flocking to get married now that a voter approved law is in effect.   [Read more…]

Corporate Censorship in 2012: All the News They Didn’t Deem Fit to Print

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This is not a definition that implies a conspiracy; it is a structural analysis of how our media system works in the real world with all the economic, political, and legal pressures that shape the process of delivering the infotainment we call news.

In last week’s column, I discussed Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s propaganda model and noted how it was even more relevant today than it was when they first published Manufacturing Consent in 1988 as the concentration of media ownership they decried in the eighties has only continued to increase dramatically.  I ended that column by referring to Project Censored, an organization that has been monitoring the news media and putting out a list of the top 25 “censored” stories of the year since 1976.   [Read more…]

Calling 5,000 People to Volunteer in Los Angeles, CA! Please Visit www.TheyCountWillYou.org

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It’s time to volunteer, get trained and help count homeless people!

The 2013 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, directed by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), consists of counting homeless people within the City and County of Los Angeles, excluding Long Beach, Pasadena and Glendale that conduct their own counts. In order to accomplish the nation’s largest local census count of homeless people in scale and scope, LAHSA needs 5,000 volunteers. So LAHSA needs you NOW!   [Read more…]

Right-Wingers Whine About Oscar Omission for ‘2016: Obama’s America’ — Here’s Four Simple Reasons Why It Got Snubbed

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By Laura Gottesdiener / AlterNet / Dec. 5, 2012

The directors of the anti-Obama film hilariously claim the film faces discrimination.

Gerald Molan, the director of the extremely anti-Obama movie, 2016: Obama’s America , is mad that his and Dinesh D’Souza’s film wasn’t on the shortlist of documentaries nominated for an Academy Award.

“The action confirms my opinion that the bias against anything from a conservative point of view is dead on arrival in Hollywood circles,” he complained  to the Hollywood Reporter.   [Read more…]

ALEC – Centralized Conservative Legislative Clearinghouse

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Why hire individual lobbyists and send them out in search of Congressmen when you can set up a lobbying clearinghouse and have them come to you?

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, does just that. Funded by the likes of the Koch brothers, Exxon Mobil and PhRMA, a trade association for the pharmaceutical industry, legislators are paid to come to ALEC meetings, where they are wined, dined, and handed “model” legislation to make into law in their state. Through ALEC, corporations vote on “model” legislation alongside politicians behind closed doors.

So instead of the lobbyists fanning out on Capitol Hill to meet with Congressmen individually, public officials are invited en masse to an ALEC meeting off Capitol Hill at a fancy resort, and they had better be there or be square if they want a campaign contribution or a great job when their “public service” career comes to an end.   [Read more…]

In 1993, Republicans Said Clinton Tax Increase on Rich Would Lead to a Recession – The Economy Boomed Instead

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Republicans are doing everything they can to protect the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. They claim that they are doing this because ending these tax cuts would harm the economy.

But this claim isn’t new. In fact, it’s exactly what they said in the 1990′s, when Bill Clinton first increased taxes on the wealthy. Here’s some of the fear-mongering they engaged in then:   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Are California Voters Ready to Amend Proposition 13?

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Polling Group Finds Support for Splitting Property Tax Rolls

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has been asking Californians what they think about issues and politics since 1998. Over time they’re work has become recognized as the gold standard for public opinion polling in the Golden State.

Yesterday they released the results of their 130th survey, taken shortly after the November elections, asking 2001 respondents about their outlook on the future, electoral reforms, potential fiscal, governance, and initiative reforms, the passage of Proposition 30, the state’s public higher education system, water policy, and elected officials’ handling of plans and policies for the state’s future.

And apparently voters are ready to consider a big change to Proposition 13, long considered a sacred cow in California politics.   [Read more…]

San Diego City Council Endorses Resolution to Reverse Citizens United – How a Grassroots Group Defeated the Odds

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By Money Out of Politics -San Diego – Special to the SDFP

On Tuesday, the San Diego City Council overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution to reverse Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that in 2010 allowed unrestricted political spending by corporations and unions.

The resolution was supported 8-0, as San Diego joins 350 cities and 12 states that have endorsed resolutions. This victory comes as a result of the hard work of a multitude of people and organizations, at the local forefront of which was Money Out of Politics/San Diego (MOP).

MOP is a local activist group that was initially born a year ago this month out of a Women Occupy San Diego meeting. The brainchild of Dianne Lane, MOP was joined by Pam Page, who, alongside Lane, has dedicated countless hours to the cause.   [Read more…]

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