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A War of Words in the D4 County Supervisor Race

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The race for District 4 County Supervisor is heating up. And not necessarily in a good way.

Four Democratic candidates are seeking the seat: attorney Omar Passons, former Deputy Fire Chief Ken Malbrough, along with former Assemblypersons Lori Saldaña and Nathan Fletcher. Former DA Bonnie Dumanis is the sole Republican on the June 5 primary ballot.

Saldaña and Fletcher are the ones making the news this week, with stories in the Union-Tribune and the Times of San Diego. You’d need a scorecard to keep track of the charges and counter-charges between two camps. While I’m not going to detail every move and countermove, I will give readers a taste of what’s been happening.

In a nutshell, last week candidate Lori Saldaña was endorsed by a breakaway labor group scorned by many progressive activists. This news has triggered a war of words.   [Read more…]

Healthcare Repair: The Achilles Heel for Republicans in 2018 Elections

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Indivisible Panel to Discuss Solutions at Balboa Park Club March 18

Issues of health and wellness represent a threat to the quality of life to most Americans.      

Healthcare. Obamacare. Medicare-For-All. Single-payer.  These are issues key to stemming the Red Tide of Republicanism come election time. The systems we to turn to for self-preservation often aren’t working when people need them. And it’s about to get much worse. So let’s have that conversation.

The GOP couldn’t come up anything beyond ‘don’t get sick and die quickly if you do’ after years of prophesizing the collapse of capitalism and civilization itself unless the collection of compromises passed while the Black Guy was in the White House were repealed.

Having robbed the treasury via ‘tax reform’ to pad the pockets of the wealthy, the Congress will have no choice but to announce yet another round of ‘reforms’ designed to reduce access to–along with the quality of–healthcare.
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500 Rally in San Ysidro Against Trump and His Wall

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In a parking lot of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in San Ysidro, 500 San Diegans rallied against President Trump and his wall. Trump was over at the prototypes during part of the rally.

The general theme, “Build Bridges Not Walls”, was highly visible as a variety of faith-based organizations and groups that have mobilized since Trump’s election came together to oppose his policies on the wall, immigration and other issues. Folks from Women’s March, Indivisible, ImpeachTrump mingled with immigrants’ rights groups and Democratic party activists.   [Read more…]

These 3 Women Could Change the California Justice System for Good

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By Liz Posner / AlterNet

District attorneys can play a major role in reducing (or amplifying) race-based incarceration in America’s largest cities. Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King announced in February that he is launching a political action committee to help elect reform-minded DA candidates and draw national attention to the issue. “No position in America, no single individual has a bigger impact on the criminal justice system—including police brutality, but the whole crisis of mass incarceration in general—than your local district attorney,” King said. “They are the gatekeepers of America’s justice system.”

In the past several years, progressive newcomers have unseated conservative old-guard incumbents in places like Caddo Parish, Louisiana, Philadelphia, Houston, Denver, and Jacksonville, to great effect.

The importance of diversifying the office of district attorney cannot be overstated. Across the country, 95 percent of district attorneys are white, and only 1 percent are women of color. Justice reform experts argue that the lack of representation for communities that are over-policed, over-arrested and over-charged is a major factor in the mass incarceration of people of color. Across the U.S., grassroots efforts are underway to reshape the justice system by choosing new progressive leaders who reflect the communities they serve.   [Read more…]

Health Care is Still the Number One Economic Issue

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By David Akadjian / Daily Kos

Since the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, there’s been a lot of talk about reasonable gun violence prevention laws. If you look at surveys, most people support them. But one of the issues we face with implementing background checks or any gun violence prevention laws is that, for conservatives, guns are an economic concern.

Different conservatives will phrase this differently but what it comes down to for them is that property must be protected at all costs, and they feel this is key to the economy. Guns are an emotional issue to conservatives, especially rural conservatives, in a way that they aren’t viewed as important to the economy by liberals.

If past experience is any indicator, the economy is the most important issue to Americans. This is what people vote on.  Because of this, the Republican strategy for the 2018 midterm elections is going to be this:

  1. Take credit for the economy
  2. Paint Democrats as caring only about identity issues or hating Trump because of identity issues

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How International Women’s Day was celebrated around the world | Video Worth Watching

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How International Women’s Day was celebrated around the world: The Guardian provides glimpses of events in Paris, London, Madrid, Jerusalem, Kosovo, New Delhi, Karachi, and Rio de Janeiro.   [Read more…]

International Women’s Day 2018 : The Time Is Now | Another Video Worth Watching

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Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day 2018. Here’s a brief video from UN Women celebrating this year’s theme: The Time Is Now.   [Read more…]

Why Did Rosie Wear a Bandana? | Women’s History Month

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Ellison Langford / Women’s Museum of California

Any time you see a little girl or woman dressed in a blue shirt and red polka-dotted bandana, you know instantly who she’s imitating– Rosie the Riveter.

It’s one of the most iconic outfits in popular culture. But for an era of haute Hollywood glamour, it’s interesting that one of the decade’s most iconic images is clad in a plain work shirt and bandana. Why? Because those clothes were safe.

Although half of the women who worked during World War II had been working before the attack on Pearl Harbor, many of them had never worked in industrial environments. Each position came with its own risks. Welding was a fire hazard, lathes involved sharp blades, and certain machines could snatch loose hair.   [Read more…]

Carl DeMaio Expected to Parachute in to ‘Save’ the 50th Congressional District from Rep. Hunter

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The possibility of both the 49th and the 50th Congressional Districts having only Republicans battling it out in the November election became real yesterday. It’s looking increasingly likely that the GOP’s Rocky Chavez and Diane Harkey will win the top two spots in the June primary, as squabbling Democrats in the 49th are busy figuring out a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Republican Carl DeMaio paid a $1,740 filing fee and pulled nomination papers on Monday from the County Registrar of Voters, signaling his intent to challenge Rep. Duncan Hunter in the 50th Congressional District. The incumbent Congressman is widely considered as damaged goods, with the Justice Department convening a grand jury to consider charges stemming from a scandal involving campaign spending.

Writing about the former City Councilman’s potential candidacy at SDRostra, San Diego’s conservative political outlet, Steve Gramm referenced polling showing DeMaio and Hunter both making it to the November general election. That research purportedly shows a path to DeMaio winning a Republican vs Republican contest.   [Read more…]

Civil Rights Leader Who Desegregated U. of Georgia Reflects on Student-Led Movements of Today | Video Worth Watching

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Civil rights leader Charlayne Hunter-Gault, interviewed by Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, reflects on her experiences desegregating the University of Georgia and on the contemporary student-led movements for gun reform.   [Read more…]

Debate Dodging and Disappointed Democrats in the 49th Congressional District

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“We, not the candidates we elect, are the leaders we’ve been waiting for.”
–Flip the 49th! organizer

Wow. What could have been a defining event in the effort to win a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives turned into a punch in the gut for North San Diego County activists.

A candidate viability forum organized by Flip the 49th!, an independent expenditure committee (super-PAC) which grew out of the weekly protests outside Rep. Darrell Issa’s office, and an Indivisible chapter was supposed to confront candidates with hard questions about their continued presence in the race.

Hundreds of people showed up on Friday, filling Oceanside’s Ocean Hills Clubhouse and spilling into overflow rooms. Another thousand turned in via Facebook to watch a live broadcast. Only two of the five declared Democrats running for Congress took the stage.   [Read more…]

It Will Take a Political Revolution to Cure the Epidemic of Depression

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We need to change the nature of work, community and wealth distribution.

By Michael Bader / Alternet

What causes depression and anxiety? I have been a practicing psychologist and psychoanalyst for almost 40 years and have seen hundreds of patients suffering from both. In my experience, some factors are obvious. People who suffer from depression and anxiety have experienced stresses and traumas in their development that predispose them to mood disorders. Garden-variety psychodynamic theory teaches us that issues involving loss, neglect, guilt, and rejection usually figure prominently in the backgrounds of people who present with significant symptoms of depression and anxiety.

In addition, over 50 years of research into the neurobiology of mood disorders strongly suggests that genetic and biological factors usually accompany, if not underlie these painful affective states. As a result of these assumptions, the treatment of depression today usually relies heavily on pharmacology, and drug companies have spent billions making sure this explanation is widely accepted. Some one in five US adults is taking at least one drug for a psychiatric problem; nearly one in four middle-aged women in the United States is taking antidepressants at any given time; and around one in 10 boys at American high schools are being given powerful stimulants to make them focus.

Since it’s well known that psychological events produce biological changes, it remains debatable whether or not disorders of our biochemistry are causes or effects. What we do know is that untold amounts of money have been spent by the pharmaceutical industry to finance research and public relations designed to enshrine biochemistry and pharmacology as primary in the diagnosis and treatment of depression and anxiety.

  [Read more…]

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