San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Trump Blames Democrats After University Study Reports 3000 Hurricane Deaths in Puerto Rico

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“Only Donald Trump could see the tragedy in Puerto Rico and conclude that he is the victim.”
—Sen. Ed Markey

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

President Donald Trump has been “lying about Puerto Rico from the start to make himself look better,” and on Thursday morning Trump lied once more by falsely claiming that a widely accepted academic study showing that nearly 3,000 Puerto Ricans died as a result of Hurricane Maria was “done by the Democrats” in an attempt to make him “look as bad as possible.”

In a pair of tweets, Trump insisted that “3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, after the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers.”

“This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising billions of dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico,” Trump added. “If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!”   [Read more…]

Medicare for All and the Myth of the 40% Physician Pay Cut

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By Dr. Carol Paris / Common Dreams

The surge in support for improved Medicare for All—now up to 70% in recent polling—has single-payer opponents ramping up their scare tactics. The Koch-funded Mercatus Center recently claimed that Medicare for all could only work with painful sacrifices from doctors, specifically by paying us Medicare’s current reimbursement rates, which are about 40% lower than private insurance.

If single payer would cost doctors so much, why do a majority of us now prefer it? I invite supporters of the status quo to spend a week at a typical doctor’s office to understand the out-of-control costs of practicing medicine in our current system.   [Read more…]

Refugees Cast in ‘The Jungle’, an Earnest Play about Migrant Camp Life in Calais

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As a response to its successful run at the Young Vic (December 2017-January 2018), The Jungle opened at Playhouse Theatre in London in June 2018 for a 20-week engagement. Created by Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy and directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, The Jungle tells the stories of the inhabitants of the makeshift camp in Calais, France, known as the Jungle.

The Jungle was an unofficial refugee camp with more than 8,000 individuals from over 17 countries including Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, Somalia, Egypt, Chad, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kurdistan, and Iran. The inhabitants of the camp were awaiting a chance to cross the Channel to the UK.   [Read more…]

From Classroom to Campaign – Taking the Next Step in Service to Community | Video Worth Watching

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This campaign season has seen a number of teachers with their pedagogical training and experience take the next step in service to community by accepting the challenge of running for positions of public service. The Run for Something group released this video to encourage others to follow in their footsteps.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s City Council District 2 | Republican Zapf vs Democrat Dr. Jen: Is a Change Gonna Come?

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My coverage of the 2018 general election will focus on the City of San Diego over the next few days, starting with the City Council and moving on to ballot measures. Today’s topic is the District 2 contest between Lorie Zapf and Dr. Jen Campbell.

Let’s face it. For a city with a seemingly bright future and a terrific climate, if you had to pick a color to represent San Diego’s mood, it would be dark gray. When progressive things happen, they get tripped up by a petulant group of land speculators and scam artists entrepreneurs.

From an economic and political point of view, the “May Gray” is a year-round state of mind for all-too-many of us. All the promises of prosperity made over the past half-century compared to the ever increasing number of people who are economically challenged amount to a solid argument for why “trickle down” is a myth.   [Read more…]

Everybody Wants to be Heard

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I don’t remember how I first got on Facebook, but I’m glad I did because it’s worked for me.

I’ve learned to just scroll past all the ads, fabrications, fake news, and the like, and get right at what’s up with my “friends” who are mostly people I’ve known for some time and people who became my friends through them.

I like never knowing what I might find. It could be a sad story that makes you sigh, or a beautiful picture of someone’s grandchild that brings gentle tears to your eyes, or a meme that is wise, or one that’s not so wise. So many of them about ridding our lives of people who aren’t good for us.

And I’ve run across a few such people online from time to time, like a young woman who tore into me like a bull goring a matador – because I had the audacity to think it was okay for a woman to breastfeed her baby in public.   [Read more…]

Jeff Griffith, Senate District 38 | Candidate Profiles for the November 2018 Ballot

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Public service has always been a major part of my life.  My father was a firefighter; I followed in his footsteps.  I began my career 30 years ago in Ramona and am now a Fire Captain and a Paramedic.

I am not a career politician.  My progressive beliefs developed early in my career as I saw the need for quality healthcare and came to see it as a right.  I saw the power of unions to responsibly protect workers and working families. As a firefighter, it was easy to become an environmentalist and believer in climate change because of the lengthening fire season.  That is why I am a Democrat, because the majority of Democratic Party values match my own orientation to the issues that are facing us.

  [Read more…]

‘Seize the King’ at La Jolla Playhouse: Self-Righteousness, Greed and Lust for Power

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If you come to Will Power’s reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Richard III at La Jolla Playhouse expecting to hear that line about the winter of our discontent, or at the end of the play hoping to watch Richard stumble around the battle of Bosworth Field, crying for his horse, you will not find it in Seize the King.

But you will find a powerful tale of a contemporary Richard, lusting for his own power, lacking a conscience, and spouting his lines in a modern iambic pentameter, tinged with hip hop. (Will Power, playwright of the piece, is partially responsible for the development and popularity of hip-hop theater).
  [Read more…]

President Trump Admin Took Millions From FEMA For ICE Detentions | Video Worth Watching

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From the MSNBC YouTube website:

Senator Jeff Merkley talks with Rachel Maddow about a document showing that the Trump administration took ten million dollars from FEMA’s budget ahead of the 2018 hurricane season and gave it to ICE to pay for detentions.

  [Read more…]

San Diego Women Running for Office as Democrats

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I’ve been searching for ways to highlight many of the local down-ballot candidates who readers might not be aware of. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by internet and tv ads touting big-name candidates for major offices, and when the time to fill in the ballot arrives, a bunch of unfamiliar names makes filling in many bubbles a crap shoot.

Today, I’m going to list women running for local offices as Democrats in San Diego County, along with basic contact information when available, going you the opportunity to learn more. While I intend to provide additional coverage on these candidates, there is simply no way I’ll get to all of them.

While there is nothing guaranteeing a woman running for office will be a better choice (every group has its outliers), I can say with certainty we certainly can’t do worse than we are these days.
  [Read more…]

Here’s Another Impeachment I Can Get Behind: Kavanaugh for Lying to Congress | Video Worth Watching

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From the MSNBC YouTube website:

Lisa Graves, former Senate Judiciary Committee chief counsel for nominations, argues that Brett Kavanaugh has lied in past testimony under oath about stolen Democratic documents and should not only not be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but should be impeached from the bench.

  [Read more…]

Are You Willing to Look Past Gavin Newsom’s Smile and Carl DeMaio’s Frown in the General Election?

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Sometimes the most influential contests on your ballot are the ones you haven’t heard much about. Let’s fix that.

Are you psyched to vote for Sunday Gover or Paloma Aquirre in the upcoming general election? How about Cory Schumacher or Akilah Weber? James Elias or Jeff Griffith? (I’ll say more about them below.)

What? You’ve never heard of them? Chances are good they won’t be on your ballot unless you live in a small city or less urbanized part of the county. But there will be a host of names, regardless of where you reside, worth learning about in the coming weeks.   [Read more…]

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