San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

With Epic GOP Failure, Dems Urged to Go Bold with Medicare-for-All

by

Americans rallied against the GOP to defend their right to healthcare, Democrats are being urged to seize on the moment

By Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

With the Republican attempt to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) going down in flames Friday as Americans rallied to defend their right to healthcare, Democrats are being urged, both by experts and constituents, to seize on the moment and counter with a plan that will truly provide coverage for all.

Uproar over the GOP’s American Health Care Act (AHCA), which was estimated to strip 24 million people of their healthcare by 2026, prompted a political firestorm as it drove voters across the nation to town halls and local legislative offices to demand that House Republicans vote against the bill.

After the White House called on House Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) to withdraw Friday’s scheduled vote (after an aggressive lobby effort on the part of both President Donald Trump and Ryan), many are looking to what happens next.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: March 19-25

by

This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, cartoonists, and sourced writers on: Ballast Point boycott, Russia, border rally cancellation, the immoral budget, weathering storms, SD’s homelessness calamity, Huncan Dunter under investigation, Carlsbad’s cameras, the damning of Park City, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: The New Cold War

by

THE NEW COLD WAR

Icy axe of air
hacks through pink cherry blossoms –
white marble flurry   [Read more…]

Progressive Activist Calendar March 24 – April 4, 2017

by

The Trump administration’s agenda continues to run into a buzz saw powered by public opinion. Defeating these horrible schemes is, however, going to take an ongoing effort. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We’ll win some, we’ll lose a few, and we need you to keep active.

So what will you do? Check out this week’s Progressive Activist Calendar listings. Following those listings are upcoming events of national importance, along with opportunities for organizational involvement.   [Read more…]

Hector Gastelum Won’t Resign and Rally at the Border Cancelled

by

San Diego Free Press Doug Porter broke the story yesterday on a man by the name of Lawrence Deshawn Silva Nathaniel with “We Are One Foundation” who organized a rally that, in the end, did not include local grass roots border organizations. Instead, he made sure to contact Border Patrol, the SDPD and ICE and said any undocumented participants of the rally could rally in a specific ‘safe space’. Wha-huh? The March 25 rally has been cancelled.

And:
— California Assembly Bill ‘Resist the Wall Act’
— Hector Gastelum Won’t Resign
— South Bay Leadership PAC Asks: How Do We Progressives Work Together Moving Forward?
— Proctor Valley Ghosts & Monsters   [Read more…]

Park City is Damned: A Case Study in Civilization

by

A Note to My Readers: It has not been easy to write this essay and I am scared to see my name displayed publicly next to what follows. I am sure these ideas will win me few friends in Park City and the broader ski community. Nevertheless, what follows is the truth as it has been shown to me. My allegiance belongs, first and foremost, to life, to the land, to both the human and non-human victims of the insanity of the dominant system. I love to ski. I love to walk the aspen groves in the Wasatch Mountains above Park City. I love seeing moose cross Park Avenue almost weekly. In short, I love living here. But my desire to live here should not trump the land’s ability to survive.

At the south end of Brown’s Canyon, about 6 miles northeast of Park City, Utah, there’s always an engine running. Usually, there are more than I can count.

If it’s not commuting car engines coughing to life in cold, winter air, it’s snowblowers blasting snow from driveways. If it’s not cars or snowblowers, its excavators flattening the next hill over, clawing out one bucketful of earth at a time. If it’s none of these, it’s diesel generators compressing air for nail guns popping boards together.

Standing on my small deck, sipping my morning coffee, I try to focus on the winds’ words. The winds speak a harsh tongue, full of curses. They are busy rattling aluminum drains on the roof’s edge, dragging loose gravel across a construction road, and navigating concrete right angles forming condominium building walls.   [Read more…]

Why Johnny Can’t Read — the Future of Education in the US

by

By Robert Smith

In my book “Natural Born Leader-A Tribute to the American Political System,” my character The Ronald plans to select the Honorable Reverend Jim Bob Bunker, President of the University of Enlightened Angels and leader of the conservative Christian Coalition of Saved Souls, to serve as his Secretary of Education. The Ronald promises conservative Christians a score of educational reforms, including:

  • No more sex education-all teenagers need to know is abstinence. Once they’re married, they can figure it out on their wedding night.
  • No more evolution-dinosaur bones are fakes, produced and buried in remote locations by Democrats, Communists and Atheists.
  • No more conventional history-they’ll still teach ancient history and modern history, but we might know it better as the Old Testament and the New Testament.

I thought I’d delivered enough fictional nuttiness through The Ronald, but I fell short in predicting The Donald’s actual nuttiness. I failed you and I promise to do better in the sequel (i.e. way more nutty).

The Donald’s real Secretary of Education, Elisabeth DeVos, doesn’t even have the educational credentials of my fictional character Reverend Bunker. She does seem to possess his wide-eyed — is it the Holy Ghost or another manic episode? — religious fervor. I’ll state for the record that I’m an old, white, male protestant in good standing (I’m Lutheran, and not the fun kind — my Synod has a state’s name in it). I’m also a product of the public school system from 1st grade to my B.S. (B.S. represents my degree, my initials and my personality) and I feel that system served me well.   [Read more…]

San Ysidro Border Rally Canceled, Questions About Sponsor Remain Unanswered

by

An event billed as a ‘Rally at the Border,’ previously scheduled for Saturday, March 25 has been canceled. I’m not sure ‘canceled’ is the right word. “Collapsed’ might be a better description. I’m hoping the sixteen hundred people who RSVP’d for the rally don’t waste their time showing up.

I’ve been digging into this story for a couple of days, and expect to post updates as people become aware of what’s occurred. There are lessons to be learned from this experience, coming in an era where anybody with a Facebook page and some clipart can call themselves ‘The Resistance.”   [Read more…]

San Diego Council Committee to Hear Proposals for Short-Term Rentals – Fri., Mar. 24th

by

A San Diego City Council committee is posed to hear three different options for short-term vacation rentals being proposed by the Planning Department this coming Friday, March 25th.

The Smart Growth and Land Use Committee of the Council will meet in the morning at the Jacob Center and attempt – once again – to juggle the contentious issue of how to deal with these particular types of rentals, an issue that the Council and city staff have bounced around now for 2 years.

The issue of short-term rentals have roiled the beach areas and Ocean Beach in particular.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Piercing The North County Bubble I’ve Put My Children In

by

My kids experience little socioeconomic diversity – am I doing them a disservice?

By Rachel Stewart Johnson, Ph.D.

I grew up in a working class neighborhood outside Denver. It was a suburban tract housing development of “starter homes” built in the early 1970s. One could find well-manicured properties, but also an abundance of crab grass and dandelions. An apartment complex occupied a large lot behind us, blocking much of our view of the Rocky Mountains to the west.

My children have different stories than mine. Here, in twenty-first century San Diego, the school district has a week off in February known as “Ski Week.” My kids have been to countless birthday celebrations through the years, where they have jumped on many square feet of trampolines, ridden ponies, petted exotic animals, played laser tag and paintball, and visited Snow White. Fourth graders at our elementary school can take a one-day trip to the state capitol by airplane, a 14-hour excursion with a $470 price tag.

This is a bubble, most definitely. The question is whether that matters, whether the affluence my children are surrounded by is a boon or harm to their moral compasses.   [Read more…]

Working with ‘New Americans’: Catherine Holmes’ Speech at the Women’s Leadership Symposium at Kent State University

by

On January 27, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that banned immigration from seven Muslim majority countries. That weekend, San Diego International Airport was packed with people who raised their voices against the order. When Trump’s revised travel ban was issued on March 6, 2017, again, hundreds of protesters gathered at San Diego International Airport to show their support for refugee and immigrant populations. I recently attended an event that increased my understanding of the refugee problem and the falsehoods that the ban is based upon.

On March 1, 2017, I attended the 4th Annual Women’s Leadership Symposium: Framing Art and Protest at Kent State University, Kent Ohio. The keynote speaker was Catherine Holmes, manager of the Office for New Americans (a New York State funded program) within the Catholic Charities of Onondaga County.   [Read more…]

Citing FBI Probe of Trump, Democrats Told to ‘Declare National Emergency’

by

‘The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate,’ says filmmaker Michael Moore, ‘needs to bring a halt to all business being done in the name of this potential felony suspect, Donald J. Trump.’

By Jon Queally / Common Dreams

Documentary filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore on Wednesday said it’s time for the Democratic Party in Congress to “declare a National Emergency” and put a stop to all legislative activity—including the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch—until the FBI completes its investigation into possible ties between members of President Donald Trump’s campaign and alleged interference by the Russian government in last year’s U.S. election.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry