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San Diego Free Press to Suspend Publication After Dec. 14

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We — the people who’ve overseen this platform called the San Diego Free Press — have decided it’s time to move on. December 14, 2018 will be our last day of posting.

We’re going out on a high note. We’ve just had our best two months ever in terms of readership. We have funds in the bank, and — most importantly — all of us on the Editorial Board remain friends. So, sorry to disappoint, but there’s no drama to report.

It’s just time. The political and media landscape is changing. For now, let’s just say we’re suspending operations.   [Read more…]

Rake America Great Again

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God bless the Finns. They’ve been there for us after the Idiot-In-Chief visited a ravaged California – the death count is now 80, with 993 feared dead – stood awkwardly in the rubble of what was once Paradise, which he called “Pleasure,” and spewed gibberish.

Because many, many people say he knows the best words about how to stop fires, he intoned, “You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important…”

He went on, I was with the president of Finland and he said, ‘We have a much different – we’re a forest nation.’ He called it a forest nation, and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things. And they don’t have any problem. And when they do, it’s a very small problem, and when it is…I know everyone is looking at that.”   [Read more…]

Can We ‘Just Be Friends’ With Facebook?

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A long look by the New York Times into how Facebook has responded to “cascading crises — over Russian misinformation, data privacy and abusive content” provides insight into the true nature of the most popular social media platform. And it should inform how or whether you should continue your relationship with (almost) everybody’s favorite social media platform.

Facebook’s pretensions have turned it into a useful idiot of the right, according to Guardian technology writer Alex Hearn.

  [Read more…]

A Historic 2,000+ Women Will Be in Office This Coming Year—Almost Entirely From One Political Party

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When conservatives scoff at the progressive slogan “The Future is Female,” they are usually responding to the insecurity that comes with knowing, deep down inside, you are in the wrong.

The strides that women, people of color, and the LGBT community have made in organizing around the 2018 midterm elections is staggering. It’s absolutely terrifying to the Right, and you are seeing desperate and craven attempts to bully and suppress the levels of democracy they’ve inspired.

In January of the last two years, beginning on Donald Trump’s inauguration day in 2017, Women’s Marches have taken over the streets across not just the United States, but the world. These marches were not simply a public protest of our current misogynist in chief; they were a call to organize and take back our government.   [Read more…]

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who Is San Diego’s Most Popular Democrat of Them All?

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This was a very good election year for Democrats in the region. Grassroots enthusiasm was high and it showed. Turn out, once all ballots are processed, will exceed 65%.

The local party organization used considerable resources for get out the vote campaigns in support of its endorsed candidates. Exactly nobody thought those endorsements were perfect. And there are a multitude of festering questions needing to be answered in the coming year.

Now that the election has passed, the party’s shortcomings should be addressed. Chair Jessica Hayes is stepping down at the end of the year and there appear to be exciting (mostly unannounced as yet, so I’ll hold off on naming them) candidates vying to replace her.   [Read more…]

Indivisible Goes From Defense to Offense With Two New Action Guides

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After more than year of playing defense against President Donald Trump and the GOP’s attacks on healthcare, workers, immigrants, refugees, the LGBTQ community, and the common good, the progressive group Indivisible on Tuesday published a new action guide aimed at helping organizers and constituents go beyond resistance and pressure the new House Democratic majority to fight for a positive, ambitious agenda.

“This guide is for what comes next,” Indivisible notes, contrasting the new roadmap with its viral 2016 Trump resistance guide.

“This guide is about using our constituent power to go on offense,” the group states. “Offense is exciting, but it’s more complex than defense. We have the opportunity to use congressional oversight to hold Trump and his cronies accountable. We can set the legislative agenda with a bold progressive vision rooted in inclusion, fairness, and justice. But none of this is automatic—we have to demand it of Congress.”   [Read more…]

Ta-Nehisi Coates on President Donald Trump and the Midterms | Video Worth Watching

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From the MSNBC YouTube website:

The new class of Democrats in Congress is a group that’s closer to reflecting what America looks like than ever before. But is this the start of something new in American politics, or a classic midterm course correction?

  [Read more…]

The Republican Death Spiral in California and Its Implications for the Party Nationally

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California Republicans are facing a full-blown disaster as votes continue to be tallied. Consider them the canary in the coal mine for the national party. Yes, there were victories for the GOP on November 8, but the future for an organization that has become little more than an extension of the President’s ego looks bleak.

Much is being made of the obituary written by Kristin Olsen, the vice chair of the California Republican Party, and published as a guest column at CalMatters.

“The California Republican Party isn’t salvageable at this time,” she wrote. “The Grand Old Party is dead — partly because it has failed to separate itself from today’s toxic, national brand of Republican politics.”   [Read more…]

What Sessions’ Resignation Means for the Mueller Investigation | Video Worth Watching

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Nicole Austin-Hillery (Executive Director, U.S. Program, Human Rights Watch) explains what the forced resignation of Jeff Sessions means for the future of the Russia investigation. Essentially, “all Americans should be concerned”.   [Read more…]

2018’s Amazing Not a Just Blue Wave Election Results

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LATE BALLOT COUNTING NEWS: Tony Thurmond has pulled into the lead in the race for Superintendent of Public Education. Escondido’s Mayor-for-life Sam Abed is within 20 votes of losing his seat. Vladimir Putin’s favorite Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, lost his seat. Democrats Katie Porter and Gil Cisneros are within striking distance of winning key Congressional contests…

Wave, ‘smave. Call it what you want, but the 2018 election included a lot of wins worth savoring if you’re from the progressive persuasion. As additional ballots have been counted over the past week, the news has gotten better.

Reporting on the election results was shaped by time zone differences and tended to focus on higher profile races. It’s no small thing that Idaho, Nebraska and Utah voters opted to expand Medicaid, while Kansas, Maine, and Wisconsin elected pro-ACA governors.   [Read more…]

Post Election Questions for Progressives at the State, Local, and National Levels

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What many had called the election of our lifetimes is over, and while any moment for reflection was immediately stolen by Trump’s purge of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the subsequent fallout with regard to the Russia investigation, there are still big, important questions that progressives inside and outside of power will face in the coming months if we hope to present a vision that does more than say no to Trump while getting trapped in his diversions.   [Read more…]

UPDATED: Arsonists Torch Office for ACCE Rent Control Activists

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A Chula Vista office for Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a community organizing group closely involved with statewide and local recent recent control initiatives was torched early Saturday morning.

Police have confirmed the fire was a deliberate targeted attack. The fact that the arsonist(s) removed the organization’s bright yellow tee shirts from the building and torched them seperately was, no doubt, a convincing clue.

In recent months ACCE activists across California had been working to pass the statewide ballot measure Proposition 10. The San Diego branch of the organization also focused on a local rent control initiative, Measure W, for National City.   [Read more…]

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