San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Can California CFO Betty Yee Get the Golden State to Think Big on Tax Reform?

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By Danny Feingold / Capital & Main

The last time California enacted comprehensive tax reform, FDR was president, Babe Ruth was still playing baseball and the Golden State was five years away from seeing its first freeway open. No wonder, then, that the world’s seventh-largest economy has an antiquated tax system, something many consider a major factor in the fiscal rollercoaster that has defined the state’s economy for several decades.

All this could change if State Controller Betty Yee has her way. California’s chief financial officer is hell-bent on bringing the state’s tax structure into the 21st century, even if it has to be dragged kicking and screaming.

As the state’s chief financial officer, Yee feels a strong obligation to bring fiscal stability to California. But her motivation to overhaul the state’s tax system is also rooted in a desire to see greater and more sustained public investment in one of the epic challenges of our time – reducing economic inequality.   [Read more…]

Mexican Chefs Do American Steakhouse in East County

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Mario Medina and Eduardo Escalante add spice to Ramona eatery

By W. Scott Koenig / A Gringo In Mexico

RAMONA, CALIFORNIA – When I heard that Mario Medina was taking over the kitchen at American steakhouse The Main Course Restaurant in Ramona, I couldn’t make the connection. When I met chef Mario – originally from Mexico City – he was executive chef at Finch’s in La Jolla, where he prepared elegant plates of California cuisine.

Who would have guessed that the chef would be slinging large slabs of dry-aged meat in rural east county San Diego just two years later?

Chef Mario explained it to me during a recent visit to Ramona to sample The Main Course’s menu. “One of the reasons I decided to take the position here, is the availability of local, sustainable ingredients from the farms and ranches in Ramona.”   [Read more…]

All Hail the Fearless Leader Trump on His Birthday!

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The Washington Post joined the ever-growing list of media barred from receiving credentials by the Donald Trump presidential campaign on Monday. The Post joins the Des Moines Register, Politico, the Huffington Post, the National Review, Univision, and a host of other outlets in Trumpian political purgatory.

‘Displeasing The Fearless Leader will get you banished’ is the message. He’s already promised to “open up” the law, no doubt to construe libel in terms of what the rich and powerful may lose by others writing anything about them. Enjoy your First Amendment while you can, folks.

Today, by the way, is Donald Trump’s birthday.   [Read more…]

Of Dentistry in Tijuana and Cross Border Friendship

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I have been writing about my friend Dr. Luis Garcia for almost 10 years. That’s how long he has been doing my dental work in Tijuana at the Baja Oral Center. Over the course of those years, Dr. Garcia has become much more than my dentist; he has become my friend. Way back in 2007 I had broken my front tooth off by biting into an English muffin that was hard as a rock.   [Read more…]

An Inside View of Homelessness in San Diego

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By Orlando Barahona / San Diego UrbDeZine

I’m Orlando Barahona and this is the first account of my experiences as a homeless man in San Diego. One aim in writing this editorial is to raise a sharp awareness of a homelessness crisis I have experienced that cannot be ignored any longer: men, women and entire families are on the streets or in sub-par dwellings; the other is to dispel the myth that anyone who enters adverse situations cannot recover.

Once upon a time in a shelter far, far away… I haven’t been chronically homeless since the beginning of my life journey. As far back as 1998 I had a career as a graphic and web designer that felt like a holiday in Valhalla, using my artistic and technical skills for clients with a lovely budget. That career’s success was enjoyed thoroughly in mind and spirit. Unfortunately, two of my largest accounts ceased to exist, taking with them seventy percent of my income.

I finished a terrible relationship in Iowa back in 2014 and I called my middle sister, who lived in Vista at the time and she invited me to California to rebuild my life. Sadly, personal and psychological problems sprouted in our relationship and that threw me into destitution when I was asked to leave her home.   [Read more…]

Carbon Dioxide Levels Set to Pass 400ppm—Permanently

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Carbon emissions and extreme weather events poised to push CO2 levels past symbolic threshold for good.

By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams

Record carbon dioxide levels are set to surpass the symbolic threshold of 400 parts per million (PPM) this year and will likely never fall below that line again in our lifetimes, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
  [Read more…]

Does Bernie Sanders Losing In California Trump What Happened in Orlando?

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In the middle of all the anger and sadness I was feeling about the death and destruction in Orlando, I received an email that should have never been sent.

The sender, a long-time political activist in San Diego, was hoping for attention. I don’t think he’s going to like what I’m going to say.

Here’s the relevant quote, in the same all caps format as it was sent: PLEASE COME TO THIS RALLY. NEED BIG TURNOUT TO GET THROUGH MEDIA BLACKOUT DUE TO NIGHTCLUB MASSACRE IN FLORIDA!!   [Read more…]

A Bad Climate?: The State of Social Justice Efforts in the Labor and Environmental Movements

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Among the stories that you may have missed during the stretch run of the primary season was some significantly bad news out of labor on the national front when several large unions in the building trades came out against a plan by some of the biggest public sector unions to join forces with environmentalist Tom Steyer in order to fund a major anti-Trump get out the vote operation in the fall. The New York Times noted that:

Two of the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituencies, labor and environmentalists, are clashing over an effort to raise tens of millions of dollars for an ambitious voter turnout operation aimed at defeating Donald J. Trump in the November election.

The rift developed after some in the labor movement, whose cash flow has dwindled and whose political clout has been increasingly imperiled, announced a partnership last week with a wealthy environmentalist, Tom Steyer, to help bankroll a new fund dedicated to electing Democrats.

  [Read more…]

Will Challengers in Carlsbad Council Race Change City Politics?

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Evidence of Big Money Guiding Council Decisions

Five candidates have declared their intention to challenge the two at-large incumbents in Carlsbad’s city council election in November. If they want to bring real change, beyond the addition of new faces, to the city’s go-along-to-get-along political cronyism, they should also lobby for a new city ordinance to limit the amount and source of campaign donations from individuals, business interests, and special interest groups, beginning with the 2018 election.

That’s when the three other council members, who did the most damage to the council’s credibility in the last two years, will be up for reelection. There’s plenty of evidence big money, much of it from out of town, guides the decisions of these city leaders.
  [Read more…]

LGBTQ Leaders Warn Against Islamophobic Incitement

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Sunday morning’s horrific mass shooting at an Orlando, Florida nightclub is being met with mourning, outrage, heartbreak and international solidarity, as well as words of caution against the unleashing of further cycles of violence through anti-Muslim and xenophobic incitement.

Approximately 50 people were killed and 53 wounded when a man opened fire at the Pulse club in the midst of Gay Pride month. The shooter has been identified as U.S. citizen Omar Mateen, who was killed by police.

Cindy Wiesner, a queer Latina Miami resident and national coordinator for Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, told AlterNet, “I am so saddened and angered by the senseless lives lost, people injured and a community that will be permanently marked by this. I worry about the fodder of hate and revenge that Trump and his kind will produce. Will he now opportunistically defend Latino people and LGBTQ people’s lives or are we just collateral damage?”   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: June 5-11

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This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, satire, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, cartoonists, and sourced writers on the primary election, deadbeat Trump, honoring The Greatest, Da Bonnie losing another MMJ case, Carlsbad’s political revolution, extreme weather, Circus Collective SD, perpetual guilt, term limits for NC, La Raza Lawyers respond to Trump attacks, and lots of other inspiring (and sometimes depressing), grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Remembering Helen Chavez: ‘Are We a Union or Not?’

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She played a vital role with husband Cesar Chavez in birthing our country’s first enduring farm workers union

By United Farm Workers

After they were married in 1948, Cesar Chavez would return home after experiencing a fresh injustice toiling in the fields and tell his bride, Helen, “somebody’s got to do something about it.” Helen Chavez nurtured her husband’s dream of organizing farm workers. She and their eight small children gave up a middle class lifestyle in 1962, embracing a life of voluntary poverty to support her husband’s labors.

During the earliest years when he would sometimes return home to Delano, California after days on the road feeling alone and demoralized, not having recruited anyone into his new union, she would encourage him, saying, “Cesar, you have to have faith in God that what you’re doing is right.” He would feel better, go out and try again.

Helen Fabela Chavez, 88, who played a vital role helping her husband give birth to what became the first enduring farm workers union in U.S. history—and sustained him during the 31 years he led the United Farm Workers of America—passed away of natural causes on Monday, June 6 at San Joaquin Community Hospital in Bakersfield surrounded by many of her seven surviving children, 31 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.   [Read more…]

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