San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

FBI: Russia! Dems: Russia! Media: Russia! Republicans: Who Snitched?

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Talk about timing. On Monday, FBI Director James Comey revealed an ongoing counterintelligence investigation into efforts by the Putin regime to influence the 2016 presidential election.

This morning we’re learning about a big dollar relationship between Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. Trump has known Manafort since the 1980s when he was partners with Roger Stone. Roy Cohn, who gained notoriety as chief counsel for Senator Joe McCarthy, introduced Trump to Stone during that decade.

On Thursday, San Diego’s Democrats For Equality meeting will feature activist John Mattes, whose early suspicions about the sources of anti-Clinton posts on the pro-Bernie Sanders Facebook pages pointed to foreign involvement, will present the findings of a six-month investigation he conducted about Russian interference.   [Read more…]

Carlsbad Leaders Use Alternative Facts to Bring in ‘Big Brother’ Stationary Cameras

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Fifty-one stationary cameras, in 14 locations, together with six mobile devices added to the ones already installed on two police cars, will soon capture the license plate numbers of all cars passing through the Carlsbad. They’ll be submitted to a national database that tracks stolen vehicles and those involved in crimes.

At its March 14 meeting, on a 4 to 1 vote, the Carlsbad city Council approved the $802,000 plan to conduct surveillance of residents and non-residents alike.

The justification for placing everyone under suspicion until they’re cleared in cyberspace was driven by a misleading police report on the city’s crime rate. Only newly-elected Councilmember Cori Schumacher challenged the numbers and the threat to privacy rights.   [Read more…]

Midway Planning Group Hosting Beach Community Planners Discussion About Homelessness in April

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By Geoff Page / OB Rag

The Midway Planning Group is devoting its entire April monthly meeting to an in depth discussion of one subject – homelessness. Councilmember Lorie Zapf has committed to attend as has Stacie Spector, the mayor’s “homeless czar.” The group had not yet settled on a venue as of its March 15 regular monthly meeting.

The Midway planners are attempting to find a place for the discussion that will accommodate an expected large group of people. The Peninsula, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, and Mission Beach planning groups are being invited to the discussion. The homeless population in the Midway area and the problems that it causes is a major concern for the mostly business oriented members of the group. Information on the meeting site will be provided in the coming weeks.   [Read more…]

Economist Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Laureate, Dead at 95

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Kenneth Arrow, Nobel prize winning economist, passed away February 21, 2017 at the age of 95 at his home near Stanford University where he was Professor Emeritus. He was the youngest person ever to win the Nobel prize. Dr. Arrow made many academic contributions, but chief among them was his Impossibility Theorem.   [Read more…]

The Insidious Effect on the Pysche of Trump’s Torrent of Lies

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Research shows that repeating a lie, even to refute it, imprints it on our brain

By Neil Baron / AlterNet

There’s a problem with the media’s repetitive refutation of Donald Trump’s lies: It makes them more credible. Research finds that repeating a lie, even to refute it, imprints it on our brains, and they become more memorable than the refutations.   [Read more…]

Club for Growth Ad Campaign Targets Congressman Issa on Health Care Bill

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The battle over #TrumpDontCare, or as the Club for Growth is now calling it, #RyanCare is coming to a head.

Congressman Darrell Issa has been named as one of ten legislators targeted by the conservative anti-tax group in a $500,000 TV and digital ad buy urging opposition to the administration’s health care bill. They don’t like the bill because it doesn’t include enough ‘freedom,’ which is code for screwing the not-as-wealthy.

On the other side of the fence, Indivisible and associated groups opposing repeal of the Affordable Care Act are regularly picketing Issa’s Vista office. Tuesday’s action included a “die in” on the lawn nearby, with signs shaped like tombstones and messages on how the Republican plan will cost lives.   [Read more…]

Weathering Storms

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A hawk flies on gentle breezes outside my window, crowing away, perhaps seeking its prey or a mate, all unfolding on one of those “Reasons Why I Live in San Diego” kind of days: so lovely and warm, giving an appearance that, when it comes to weather, all is well with the world.

Then I think of the other day when my son and I ducked into the theater at the Reuben H. Fleet Museum to see “Extreme Weather,” an IMAX movie that took us on a breathtaking 360-degree tour of scenes that remind us that, climate-wise, we earthlings are in deep ca-ca.

All is definitely not well. We’ve jabbed and danced around and clowned, burning coal and oil and natural gas and bulldozed and chopped down our rain forests, backing Mother Nature up against the ropes, leaving her no choice but to come off those ropes and huff and puff and blow us and our houses down!   [Read more…]

Jig Up for Duncan Hunter This Week?

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By Dweisman / Escondido Grapevine

House Ethics Committee scheduled to consider Hunter financial affairs Wednesday

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-50th District) and his use of campaign funds for personal expenses is scheduled to come under review from the House Committee on Ethics at 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 22. The committee announced the meeting in a Website posting Friday.

However, before one gets too excited, consider that the committee previously set meetings for March 9 and March 13, only to postpone them each time.
  [Read more…]

Teamsters Going After Opioid Profiteers

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By Sarah Anderson / OtherWords.org

Travis Bornstein never told his friends about his son Tyler’s drug problem. He was too embarrassed.

Then, on September 28, 2014, Tyler’s body was found in a vacant lot in Akron, Ohio. The 23-year-old had become addicted to opioid pain killers after several sports-related injuries and surgeries. Unable to afford long-term treatment, he ultimately turned to a cheaper drug — the heroin that killed him.

“Now I have no choice but to speak out,” the elder Bornstein, president of Teamsters Local 24 in Akron, told a crowd of thousands at the union’s convention in 2016. As he shared the unvarnished tale of how a middle-class, star athlete wound up in that vacant lot, Bornstein lit a fire under the 1.4-million-member organization.   [Read more…]

Ballast Point Boycott Tied to Support for Congressman Paul Ryan, Trumpcare Fight

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A boycott of Ballast Point products is being pushed by groups in Chicago as part of a campaign of resistance to the Trump administration’s hurry-up plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Ballast Point is the largest brewer in San Diego and was acquired by Constellation Brands in November 2015 for a reported of $1 billion. The parent company’s Political Action Committee has donated $25,000 thus far in 2017 in support of Rep. Paul Ryan, who’s leading the congressional fight for passage of what I like to call #TrumpDontCare.

The brewery has reached out via social media as news of the boycott has gone viral, saying “Ballast Point does not support Paul Ryan, nor the healthcare bill.”   [Read more…]

A Deeply Immoral Budget

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They say that budgets are moral documents, and if that is the case, then the Trump administration just released the most immoral budget in the history of the United States.

While there are many things to condemn in Trump’s depraved plan, starting with the way it pays for a completely unnecessary, massive increase in funding for the military industrial complex by eviscerating programs that help the poor, fund education, and maintain the social fabric of the country, there is still something worse than all that contained within it.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Homelessness Calamity: You Have Just Entered the Twilight Zone

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Say what you want about the faraway White House. But watch what you say about City Hall and the people we elect to local government – they’re practically family.

They live in our neighborhoods. We have coffee with them when they’re running for office. We bump into them at the movies or supermarket. We could hop a trolley downtown and collar them at work. We elect them to work for us.

Their job is to pave the streets, limit what gets built on that empty lot around the corner, keep an eye on the police department, get the trash picked up, and make sure there are enough fire stations to keep us safe and good air-quality levels to keep us healthy and enough libraries and parks to help make us happy.   [Read more…]

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