San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Barrio Logan’s Marine Terminal Expansion Moves Toward Sustainability

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[Editor’s Note: Yesterday, more than 40 community members from Barrio Logan, Logan Heights and Sherman Heights attended a hearing to urge Port of San Diego commissioners to reduce pollution and incorporate community benefits into the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal Expansion plan.

According to the California Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice screening tool, CalEnviroScreen, Barrio Logan remains among the worst five percent of neighborhoods suffering from the cumulative impacts of pollution in California.

SDFP Editor Brent Beltrán was one of the speakers. Here is what he said.]   [Read more…]

Ocean Beach’s Largest Landlord Adds 10 Units, Immediately Raises Rents

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Michael Mills Buys Complex of Studios on Voltaire – Notifies Tenants of 20% Rent Raise

The largest landowner – landlord in Ocean Beach, Michael Mills, just purchased a complex of 10 studios on Voltaire Street – and immediately notified the tenants of a rent raise.

Mills can now add this property to his OB empire – an empire that the OB Rag has been chronicling – which we calculate at 241 units within Ocean Beach – not including this most recent purchase.   [Read more…]

Immigration: Fairness in California with Three Groundbreaking Bills

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CA stands firm in upholding its values of fairness and due process for all with SB6, AB3, & SB54.

By Carmen Iguina / ACLU San Diego & Imperial Counties

In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, President-Elect Donald J. Trump said that he planned to deport some three million immigrants—allegedly all “criminal immigrants.” Many people, myself included, were alarmed to hear this. The details of these new mass-deportation policies remain unclear, although some reports have surfaced that the policies would include anyone who has ever been arrested, even if the person was later found innocent or the charges were eventually dropped.

But California is moving in the opposite direction and instead undertaking efforts to make things fairer for immigrant and Muslim communities. Due process, the idea that everyone deserves fair treatment by our government whenever any of their civil liberties are at stake, is a cornerstone of our democracy and one of the most cherished American values.   [Read more…]

City Council, Day One: New Faces, Old Politics

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“Love rescue me, come forth and speak to me,” lyrics from a Bob Dylan/U2 song, echoed across Horton Plaza as current and newly-elected city officials, including the mayor, city council and city attorney, streamed into the Balboa Theater on Monday.

The Voices of Our City Choir, most of whom are homeless, were there serving as a reminder of the inhumane practices that are the end result of years of neglect, greed, and incompetence in local government.

Speakers at the People’s Inaugural, representing the voices of the dispossessed and downtrodden, called out for Emergency Humanitarian Action, urging the Mayor to suspend the ticketing, arrest of, and stay away orders for unsheltered homeless San Diegans.   [Read more…]

It’s Time to Let Our Light Shine

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As I more and more awaken from the shock to my body and soul as a result of Donald Trump being my president, I keep thinking back to my Sunday School days in the 40’s singing a song our teacher, Mr. Chandler, taught us:

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine…

Mr. Chandler, a beautiful man, with a voice like Paul Robeson’s, would tell us: “Children, no matter, what comes your way in your life, and, Lord knows, you will have trials and tribulations that sometimes will make you feel like giving up and maybe make you lose your way on your path to righteousness. But you have a power in you, a light, a powerful light, that you must let shine, that you must use to help yourself and your world to stay on track the way God wants you to.”   [Read more…]

Patti Smith Sings For Dylan At Nobel Ceremony

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By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

At a Stockholm ceremony this weekend, rocker and longtime colleague Patti Smith accepted Bob Dylan’s Nobel in Literature by offering up to the glittering audience a searing, timely rendition of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Evidently rattled by the grand proceedings, Smith faltered on the second stanza, put her hands to her face and apologized to the audience – murmuring “I’m so nervous” in a lovely human moment – before gathering her strength and delivering a scorching, powerhouse performance.

Smith’s appearance in lieu of Dylan capped months of sometimes clamorous debate about whether the blue-eyed son’s decades of ineffable poetry are or are not literature – and, later, if his delay in responding and his failure to appear was or was not arrogance. The uproar was best laid to rest by one Committee member who serenely noted, “He is who he is.”   [Read more…]

Russia + Trump: Oil and Money Mix Nicely

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

Oil and natural gas aren’t just a part of Russia’s economy, they are the economy. Up until 2014, oil accounted for 50 percent of revenue going into the budget. As long as oil and gas prices were high, Putin was able to float along, using oil profits to prop up the Russian economy and his own popularity. But as oil and gas fell, so did Putin’s ability to pretend that his policies were bringing improvement. Since 2014, the value of the ruble has plunged to a third of its former value against the dollar.

The reason is the same as the reason the coal industry is going under: fracking. Fracking for oil and natural gas has filled the US market to overflowing. It’s the reason that gas is $2 at the pump, the reason that the largest coal companies in the world are bankrupt, and the reason that over 160 oil companies have also gone bankrupt this year. Prices are so low, companies and countries that depend on fossil fuels for revenue are feeling a huge squeeze.   [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News – November 2016

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By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and abroad, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free world. Here is our November 2016 issue:

Fukushima quake rock’s Japan’s and the globe’s psyche.

On Tuesday, November 22, at 5:39 a.m., a strong earthquake hit Japan’s southeast region, including the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing widespread panic and immediate tsunami warnings.  The 11-23 Japan Times reported:

“Sirens rang continuously along the coast, and on TV screens a red banner read”Flee  immediately!”   [Read more…]

Making Sense of the CIA’s Story on Comrade Trump’s Campaign

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On Friday afternoon, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell of a story making the claim that disinformation/hacking efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign were aimed at supporting the candidacy of President-elect Donald Trump.

On Saturday, the New York Times took it a step further, reporting that the Russians had also hacked the Republicans’ data, but didn’t disclose it out of antipathy to the Clinton campaign.

At that point the domestic political universe as I know it collapsed. (Some) Republicans became overtly pro-Putin. (Some) Democrats called for a new Cold War. And the conspiracy-driven quadrant of the internet universe collapsed into a heap.   [Read more…]

San Diego Labor Opposes DAPL Pipeline

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The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the heroic struggle against it have ignited a big battle inside of American labor. Earlier this fall an excellent article in Common Dreams outlined the split over DAPL at the national level with key trades unions and AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka backing the pipeline and criticizing the protests while other large national unions were issuing statements supporting the Standing Rock resistance.

Here in California and elsewhere, Trumka’s letter in support of the pipeline received strong condemnation. For instance, a response to it that I penned as chair of the California Federation of Teachers Climate Justice Task Force challenges the AFL-CIO leader in the strongest possible terms: “In sum, your statement is factually inaccurate, morally suspect, politically inept, and does not stand for the values that should guide a progressive union movement worth being a part of in an era of stark threats to the future of our children.” I have yet to receive a response.   [Read more…]

The Humiliating Ruin of Mitt Romney

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By Brett Warnke

The emperor Tiberius famously retreated to Capri, engaging in every torment and excess imaginable. One of his favorites was tossing his foes off the cliffs onto the rocks while, down below, his soldiers would beat the fallen bodies with oars. Now, two thousand years later, it’s not a revolution or an emboldened left that mercilessly tossed the Bush and Clinton dynasties—along with Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, and now Mitt Romney off the headlands and onto the cliff rocks, it was Donald Trump.

Yes, Trump has spent the month assembling his new Wrecking Crew to tear apart 20th century’s progressive gains. And it now appears the smug ugly face of empire will be the hideous mask of Rex Tillerson, a corporate thug and climate change denier with no public service experience who led the most sinister business on earth, Exxon-Mobil. Worth $150 million personally, Tillerson helped filch Exxon $35 billion this year and could not more perfectly personify the Trump era to come.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: Dec 4-10

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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, and sourced writers on: the short term victory at Standing Rock, fake news, California bracing for Trump’s assault on immigrants, hands off Medicare, Chargers reviving downtown stadium talks, Armenians of California, GMOs, remembering Pearl Harbor, SDPD’s racial bias, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

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