San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Free Speech and Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign at SDSU

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Open Letter From SDSU Staff and Faculty Regarding Naming and Targeting of Students

Dear President Hirshman

As staff and faculty of San Diego State University, we stand in support of students whose rights to free speech have come under threat as a result of flyers posted across campus by the Horowitz Freedom Center on April 14, 2016. The flyers specifically targeted seven students from Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Student Association (MSA), claiming that they have “allied themselves with Palestinian terrorists to perpetrate BDS and Jew Hatred on this campus.” We condemn these false and defamatory allegations that have caused harm and distress to our students.

We are disappointed that the administration has refused to defend students from charges of “Jew-hatred” and of being linked to “terrorists.” This is not only offensive, it leaves the targeted students exposed to harassment, discrimination, and other bias-motivated offenses. Students rightly feel betrayed. When protesting students hold signs that read “SDSU thinks we are terrorists,” they are correctly rebuking the university for failing to fulfill its mandate to treat students with respect and dignity.

We are speaking out because we have a collective responsibility as both community members and employees in supporting and promoting student rights to freedom of speech and to be free of intimidation.   [Read more…]

Officer Misconduct and Use of Force: Blue Code of Silence to Remain Under California Law

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Bill to open up police misconduct records dies in Senate Appropriations committee

By ACLU of San Diego

Senate Bill 1286, introduced by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and coauthored by Senators Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa), and Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), was held in the Senate Appropriations committee on May 27.

“Today is a sad day for transparency, accountability, and justice in California,” said Peter Bibring, police practices director for the ACLU of California. “Last year, 211 people were killed by police in California – more than in any other state – yet state law will continue to shield from public view the full findings of investigations into each and every one of these and all future killings.”

SB 1286 would have shined light on how departments handle confirmed instances of officer misconduct and serious uses of force. California, a national leader in upholding and expanding the rights of its residents, is surprisingly one of the most secretive states when it comes to releasing basic information about how departments investigate and address wrongdoing by peace officers, including racial profiling, sexual misconduct, and officer-involved shootings.   [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News May 2016 : Ripped Off California Ratepayers Struggle for Fairness Over San Onofre

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California Nuclear Ratepayers Still Struggling For Justice Over San Onofre Shutdown Costs

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press (via OB Rag)

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the US nuclear power industry at home and abroad, and highlights the efforts of those who are fighting to create a nuclear free future. Here is our May issue:

On May 17, the Orange County Register ran the story, “How much should consumers pay for the San Onofre shutdown?”

As previously reported by Nuclear Shutdown News, in June 2003, the San Onofre nuclear power plant, located in northern San Diego County, permanently shut down, 20 years ahead schedule.

This followed a scandal involving gross mismanagement and duplicity by its majority owner, Southern California Edison.   [Read more…]

Vast Majority of Democrats Want Sanders to Stay in Race: Poll

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Despite pressure from party establishment on Sanders to drop out of the race, most Democratic voters want the senator to keep running

By Nika Knight / CommonDreams

A new poll released Wednesday found that a majority of registered Democrats want presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders to stay in the race.

The national survey of 2,001 voters by Morning Consult found that 57 percent of all Democrats polled want Sanders to keep running, while 33 percent want him to drop out. Ten percent have no opinion.

The findings contradict the pressure from prominent Democratic politicians and centrist pundits on Sanders to drop out of the presidential race—some of whom even argue that he’s already lost—despite the fact that several states (including delegate-rich California) and U.S. territories have yet to hold their primaries. (Polls also show Sanders and Clinton in a dead heat in California, which votes on June 7.)   [Read more…]

Lies, Threats, and Clickbait on the 2016 Campaign Trail

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With less than a week left before the June 7th California Primary elections, the chickens are coming home to roost.

Community activists in San Diego called out the Faulconer administration’s willingness to use a shotgun to kill a fly following a massive show of force ending in the Barrio Logan neighborhood.

The Trump campaign has begun its formal descent into the netherworld with an endorsement by North Korea, a full-on attack on the media and revelations about the real estate education scam run by the Donald.

And the ugly side of social and faux media is manifesting itself in ways unimaginable just a few years back…   [Read more…]

McMansion Coming to Ocean Beach: The Froude Project

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The Saga of the Controversial Froude Project at the San Diego Planning Commission

By Tom and Judy Parry / OB Rag

The decision by the San Diego Planning Commission was pretty clear: Five votes to allow a McMansion to go forward on our quiet Ocean Beach block of Froude Street, one vote to stop it.

Amid our disappointment, we’re allowing the lessons we learned to sink in. The one most frightening is that it can happen on any O.B. street with similar zoning, even if no McMansions are present, even if the entire block is dead set against it.   [Read more…]

Joe DiPietro’s “Hollywood” at the La Jolla Playhouse

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By Mukul Khurana

In 1922, a popular Hollywood director was murdered. His name was William Desmond Taylor. Most of us don’t recognize that name, but his murder ushered in a new era—the Hays Era.

The Hays Production Code changed the way business was done in Hollywood—what could be shown or not shown. Except, Taylor’s murder did not directly usher in the Hays Era. That’s known as “artistic license” and has happened since time immemorial.

Be that as it may, Hollywood written by Joe DiPietro and directed by Christopher Ashley is a smart and sexy “Theater Noir” with a true story at its core. Beside the murder, the play delves into censorship issues—and morality. What was Hollywood about and what is it now?   [Read more…]

Advice for Divided Democrats

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By Robert B. Reich / RobertReich.org

With the Democratic primaries grinding to a bitter end, I have suggestions for both Clinton and Sanders supporters that neither will like.

First, my advice to Clinton supporters: Don’t try to drum Bernie Sanders out of the race before Hillary Clinton officially gets the nomination (if she in fact does get it).

Some of you say Bernie should bow out because he has no chance of getting the nomination, and his continuing candidacy is harming Hillary Clinton’s chances.   [Read more…]

Five Ways to be a Changemaker

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By Linda Williams, Ph.D. and Monica Slabaugh / Invisible Disability Project

Social change is unruly and imperfect. When we say “changemaker,” we are talking about the individual who uses the resources native to them to change themselves, and create change in the places and people around them. There are some fundamental ways we can improve our changemaker ways. The Invisible Disability Project came up with five of them.   [Read more…]

San Diegans Condemn Militarization of Barrio Logan by Mayor Faulconer and Chief Zimmerman

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Community is urged to report incidents of police abuse, mistreatment, and arrests during Trump protests

By Alliance San Diego

For many years, San Diego community leaders have engaged with city leaders and law-enforcement officials to dialogue about public actions involving protected First Amendment speech. This had been done in order to ensure that the right to peacefully assemble occurs without the encumbrance of disproportionate and unnecessary force. But on Friday May 27, that right was undermined by law enforcement and city leaders, which turned Barrio Logan into a militarized zone, threatening residents and scaring families.

Press conference scheduled today, May 31 at 11:00 am in Barrio Logan. Details inside.   [Read more…]

¡Fuera Trump! Unión del Barrio Report On The May 27th Action In San Diego

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By Unión del Barrio

San Diego’s Chicano Park was the gathering point for at least 800 people who participated in a politically militant and well organized action to unwelcome the anti-Arab, anti-Black, anti-Mexican, anti-Woman, power-hungry, neo-fascist oligarch Donald Trump. The event took place on Friday May 27, 2016, and represented dozens of organizations, cultural groups, MEChAs, local businesses, artists, barrio youth, families, elderly people, activists, and allies from diverse communities.

Participants repeated slogans like ¡Trump Fascista – Tu Eres Terrorista! and ¡Luchar, Luchar – Luchar Contra Trump! throughout the event, which began with a short rally in the park and moved on to become a march down Cesar Chavez Parkway and Harbor Drive, right up to the main entrance of the San Diego Convention Center. Unión del Barrio member Maria Rodriguez remarked “The best moment of the day was when the Chicano Park marchers appeared on the bridge to join forces with the hundreds of other anti-Trump protesters already at the Convention Center!”   [Read more…]

Donald Trump’s Republican Nomination Win Could Be a Fluke

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Trump’s Win Could Be an Artifact of the Voting System

Not many people give much thought to the dynamics of the voting system. We just accept that you vote for one guy or the other and everybody gets one vote and the person who gets the most votes wins. This system, called plurality voting or first-past-the-post, seems obvious, but there are a myriad of other kinds of voting systems.

In the case of the Republican primary the single vote per voter with so many candidates almost guaranteed some sort of anomaly. A total of 17 candidates started off in the primary on March 23, 2015. As each state was ticked off, Trump garnered most of the votes; however, a majority of the voters voted for one of the other candidates.

The result was that Trump was reported as having “won” the state, especially if it was a winner-take-all state. As Trump won, his momentum built up and before too long, his winning the primary seemed inevitable. Even after all but Cruz and Kasich had dropped out, Cruz and Kasich were splitting the anti-Trump vote.   [Read more…]

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