San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

DA Dumanis Subpoenaed in Campaign Conspiracy Case

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San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has been subpoenaed and is expected to testify in federal district court on Monday at the trial of Mexican businessman Jose Susumo Azano Matsura.

Defense attorney Michael Wynne has been questioning witnesses about the DA’s direct knowledge of illegal campaign contributions and told freelance reporter JC Playford in an on-the-street video about the summons.

Although their initial support for her campaign is at the core of the government case against Azano and his co-conspirators, prosecutors have this far crafted a case that avoids avoiding linking her to any participation or awareness of illegal activities.   [Read more…]

Democrats Need To Be Elected Up and Down the Ticket

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If You Don’t Want American Fascism, You Must Vote Democratic

In a great speech at the Democratic convention, President Obama made his case about why we need to elect Hillary Clinton the next President and that we should also elect Democrats “up and down the ticket.” That is very important because Obama himself only had a chance to get his agenda implemented when there was a Democratic filibuster-proof Congress.

Do you remember the high drama surrounding the supermajority that the Democrats supposedly had in 2008 after Obama was elected? Senator Ted Kennedy was ill with brain cancer. His vote was the much needed 60th vote for filibuster-proofness. But he was too sick to vote.

Eventually, Republican Scott Brown was elected to Kennedy’s seat, and Democratic control of Congress ceased because from then on, the Republicans filibustered literally everything. Obama was left to spin his wheels trying to get them to play nice and compromise. It didn’t work, and Obama wasted his time.   [Read more…]

Many People Are Saying Trump’s Economic Proposals Don’t Add Up

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Republican Donald Trump gave a speech on economic policy before the Detroit Economic Club on Monday. The appearance was supposed to constitute a reboot of his flagging campaign, recently beset by blunders, bluster, and bullshit.

The candidate mostly stayed on script, reading on despite fourteen interruptions by protesters at pre-planned intervals. There was little actual news in the content of the address unless you want to call out revising his tax cuts to match the ones House Speaker Paul Ryan has been proposing.

Trumpian economics consists of triggering a trade war, drastically increasing the deficit and a massive transfer of wealth to the to already rich, while the rest of us wait for tax deductions we can’t use, along with the same old promises about deregulation/trickle-down as the road to prosperity.

“I want to jump-start America,” Trump said, “and it won’t even be that hard.”   [Read more…]

The Abortion Fight Goes On – Right Here in San Diego

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Forced birthers intimidate and shame women at health clinic

The shouts of the “religious” zealots ring in my ears as I help escort patients from their cars to the front door of a local family planning clinic that provides abortion services one morning per week.

Armed with earplugs to hand out to patients who don’t wish to hear the abuse, I take the elevator up  to stand by the door of the clinic. Today the zealots are carrying large signs with graphic photos of bloody aborted fetuses and words claiming that Jesus saves and babies are not body parts. The good news is the “preacher” with a voice louder than the decibel limit who bellows out the scripture is not here today.
  [Read more…]

San Diego Chargers Stadium: Q&A with Barrios Against Stadiums

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“Our backyard has historically been neglected. People can call BASTA! NIMBY as much as they want but our backyard is full. Start storing stuff in yours.”

Interview by Jeffrey Siniard / Bolts From The Blue

Bolts From The Blue blogger Jeffrey Siniard reached out to interview SDFP columnist/editor Brent Beltrán to discuss why Barrios Against Stadiums, which he is a part of, opposes a stadium in the East Village. We reprint the interview here in it’s entirety with photos added from a protest against the Chargers stadium held on July 15 in Barrio Logan.   [Read more…]

Sanders Tells Backers Immediate Aim of Political Revolution Must Be to Defeat Trump

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The revolution ‘will continue until we create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent,’ Sanders writes in new op-ed

By Andrea Germanos / Common Dreams

Bernie Sanders has again urged his supporters to back Hillary Clinton, writing Friday that “Donald Trump would be a disaster and an embarrassment for our country if he were elected president.”

In an op-ed published at the Los Angeles Times, Sanders contrasts the two leading candidates on everything from tax policy to climate change to healthcare, and says that the “immediate task” of his political revolution is to make sure the real estate mogul doesn’t end up in the White House.   [Read more…]

2016 Summer Chronicle 8: Walking With a Fiery Love

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For better or worse, I have always favored sacrificing money for owning as much of my time as possible, stealing it from those who would suppose my life was better spent doing their business or serving some purpose that someone has deemed to be more important than my petty little existence. Because of this, I love to walk. Walking is free and fundamentally grounded in the world. When you walk unencumbered you are present and open. With each step you take you are more alive.

Of course this is a Romantic notion with a capital “R,” but as I enter middle age, I find that nursing the part of myself that still knows how to dream is neither impractical nor immature. It is, in fact, crucial to staying alive rather than dying while I’m still breathing.   [Read more…]

Baja Dog Rescue

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Life for dogs in Mexico is not very good, except for the lucky ones who have responsible owners. There are so many street dogs roaming about! These street dogs have a very poor quality of life, and because they are not neutered, the problems continue.

However, there are two brothers, Adam and Josh Prater, who along with Adriana Garcia were inspired to try and make a difference for street dogs in Baja. They found a 50,000 square foot space that was available to them in Tijuana, so Baja Dog Rescue began informally in 2008, and in 2010, it came became a non-profit organization dedicated to rescuing and finding loving homes for homeless dogs.   [Read more…]

San Diegans Tell KFC: Drop Chicken Raised on Routine Antibiotics

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By Jacqueline Salinas

On Tuesday, August 8th CALPIRG staff and volunteers will deliver petition signatures from thousands of San Diegans to a local KFC urging the fried chicken giant to stop serving meat raised with the routine use of antibiotics. Speakers will talk about the dangers of antibiotic resistance and how KFC can help stop it.

Antibiotic resistance is quickly becoming public enemy number one among health experts worldwide, especially true now with the recent emergence of a new “superbug” resistant to a last resort antibiotic, colistin. The majority of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. are for use on livestock and poultry, not in doctors’ offices, and often for animals that aren’t sick. Major restaurants like KFC can help stop that misuse of our life-saving medicines, as McDonald’s and Subway, and Chick-fil-A have all done.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: July 31-Aug 6

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This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: Trump’s rough week, marijuana edible madness, Chicano Park Museum fundraiser, dismantled rock art in OB, San Onofre’s whistleblower, Moxie and Cygnet’s latest, better land use in NC, walking amongst ancestorsand lots of other inspiring, grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Walking Among Ancestors

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I am vanishing with Lake Hodges

Five years of drought and fire
melts water into clouds
grinds dirt into dust
blows tracks from trails   [Read more…]

Voting My Conscience for My Grandson and All the Children of the World

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I don’t usually run scared but it frightens me to the bone when I hear so many people say that there’s just no way they would ever vote for Hillary Clinton for president.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m voting my conscience too. But I’m doing it on behalf of children, people like my little three-year-old grandson and his contemporaries.

My vote is based on what’s in front of me as possibilities, like the possibility that Donald Trump could, in reality, become the president and set the tone for how things are going to be in a society wherein my grandson is going to learn about his world. Well that’s terrifying to me – especially considering my 78 years of struggles in this country.   [Read more…]

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