San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The End Of The Establishment?

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By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org

Step back from the campaign fray for just a moment and consider the enormity of what’s already occurred.

A 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who describes himself as a democratic socialist, who wasn’t even a Democrat until recently, has come within a whisker of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus, routed her in the New Hampshire primary, and garnered over 47 percent of the caucus-goers in Nevada, of all places.

And a 69-year-old billionaire who has never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican Party has taken a commanding lead in the Republican primaries.
  [Read more…]

The Case Against ‘Saving’ Marriage

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Married nuclear families are the gold standard against which we are all judged

By Nicole Rodgers / AlterNet

Marriage rates have been declining for more than half a century and single women now outnumber married ones. There are few guides better at navigating this new landscape than Rebecca Traister. In a recent New York Magazine article, adapted from her soon-to-be-released book All the Single Ladies, she offers an insightful, nuanced analysis of the plight and power of unmarried women “taking up space in a world that was not designed for them.” Traister argues that the current democratic policy platform may be more liberal than it has been in a generation in response to the growth of unmarried women. It’s about time. Public policy has lagged almost criminally behind in meeting the needs of single women, and especially single mothers, for decades.   [Read more…]

Questions About Police Intervention at Lincoln High Remain Unanswered

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The San Diego County District attorney’s office announced on Monday that video of an incident at Lincoln High School will not be released, according to a report on 10News. A SDUSD police officer was injured, two students were arrested and five people were hospitalized on Friday.

At issue are conflicting reports over what happened. Students say police overreacted to roughhousing. A cell phone video shows a police officer tasering a student lying face down and another officer pepper-spraying onlookers at the historically black high school. Police are asserting that an officer was jumped from behind and say more arrests are expected in the near future.   [Read more…]

Feeling a Need to Stand with Planned Parenthood After Watching “The View”

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I was watching the women on The View the other day talk about a video of John Kasich saying, in reference to a campaign he had won in Ohio years ago, that he had been victorious because “many women left their kitchens” to go door to door for him.

A woman didn’t take well to his remark and let him know that she would, never-the-less, come out to support him but wouldn’t do so from her “kitchen.”

“I gotcha,” Kasich replied, a bit embarrassed by his “a woman’s place is in the home” kind of faux pas.   [Read more…]

Americans Are Being Screwed by Drug Companies

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And It’s Not Obamacare’s Fault

You can blame lobbyists from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry in conjunction with Republican lawmakers who lobbied the Affordable Care Act to death making it in the long run unaffordable and probably untenable. Why? Because there are no cost containment features in the Act. None. Nada. Zippo.

What that means is that the drug companies can raise the prices of drugs 5000% like Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals did for Daraprim without breaking the law. Shkreli’s arrogance, the latest example of which is calling the Congressmen who interrogated him “imbeciles”, has gotten him into much trouble but not for raising the price of a life-saving drug 5000%.   [Read more…]

Hogarth at the San Diego Public Library

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By Brett Warnke

“What’s your proposal? To build the just city? I will.” –W.H. Auden

What does it mean to construct the just city today? San Diego is admittedly no Flint. As I write this, there are unpunished poisoners like Rick Snyder still giving speeches, doing fundraisers, outside of a prison cell, with the craven media establishment recording every utterance. And even further east, goldbricker frauds on Wall Street giggle their way through new swindles—ones we won’t discover until we once again stand at the lip of another recession when “tough choices” will again “have to be made” in order to “save Main Street.”

But San Diego is a city not immune to corruption. Our streets, too, are peopled with the chalked bodies of unarmed black and brown men. In July 2015 we even played host to the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC), that great instrument of business elites to capture the regulatory powers of the state for its own tax loopholes and favors. And just this year our local democracy was used by the Chamber of Commerce to thwart wage increases for thousands of workers.

What does it mean to construct a just city in such a corroded republic? “America’s finest city” is a city 41% more expensive than the rest of America, where people of every shade are scrabbling at the lower slopes of the wage scale and where 38% of residents, regardless of their neighborhood, are unable to earn enough to make a living. One method of coping is to laugh. Ours is a golden age of satire.   [Read more…]

#StandWithLincoln Incident Puts an Exclamation Point on Black History Month in San Diego

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An incident at San Diego’s historically black Lincoln High School on Friday involved students being tased and pepper sprayed by police from two agencies.

Students say police involvement was an overreaction to horseplay. The parent of a student who was jailed claims the arrest is revenge by the authorities. The ACLU says they are deeply concerned about what happened and are investigating.

The police say one officer suffered a concussion and has been placed on administrative leave. A cell-phone video shows the seemingly unharmed officer tasing a student laying face down on the ground.   [Read more…]

The Stunning Moral Failure of the Presidential Debates: Where is the Climate Crisis in Our National Discussion About the Future of the World?

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If you are an observant reader you might have noticed that last week, amidst the usual banal political commentary surrounding the Presidential race, the New York Times matter-of-factly reported that, “Seas are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries”. If you managed not to spit out your coffee, you read the alarming news that:

The worsening of tidal flooding in American coastal communities is largely a consequence of greenhouse gases from human activity, and the problem will grow far worse in coming decades, scientists reported . . .

Those emissions, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, are causing the ocean to rise at the fastest rate since at least the founding of ancient Rome, the scientists said.   [Read more…]

Black History Month Ends on a Sad Note

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By Rev. Richard Lawrence

Affirmative Action–a restorative justice program that tried to level the playing field for minorities, women and the disabled has been a miserable failure if the measure is increased pressure for justice.

The best example of affirmative action I’ve seen was organized by Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) when in 1962 Dr. King appointed the Rev. Jesse Jackson to organize a chapter of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago. Jesse was a student at Chicago Theological Seminary–part of the Federated Theological Faculties–a cooperative academic venture that included the University of Chicago Divinity School (where I was a student). Disciples Divinity School and the Unitarian-Universalist Seminary.   [Read more…]

Beyond Liberal Schadenfreude: ‘Poorly Educated’ Voters Are Not Really Responsible for Trumpmania

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By Chauncey DeVega / Daily Kos

Tuesday’s Nevada caucuses were but one more battlefield on which Trumpmania easily vanquished its foes. Donald Trump, the American Il Duce and Mad Max’s Immortan Joe come to life in the form of a reality TV show host and real estate gangster capitalist, won 45.9 percent of the Republican vote. This was more support than his two nearest rivals combined.

Donald Trump stuck to a tried-and-true routine during his victory speech. The “Trumpeteers” are an easy crowd to move when in the presence of their demigod. Trump knows how to manipulate their anxieties, fears, worries, and hopes. Trump plays to the cheap seats—the lowest common denominator—as he brays about “making America great again,” killing “terrorists,” and building a wall on the Mexican border.

His public lives vicariously through Trump’s proto-fascist strongman routine. They are desperate to absorb his supposed vitality.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: Feb 21-27

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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, cartoonists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: the stadium shakedown, SeaWorld spying, the Trump U lawsuit, a new SCOTUS, CV pot shop shutdown, not mourning Scalia, SANDAG’s TransNet Tax, the price of beauty, Ceramic Heights, 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…]

Ceramic Heights: A New Creative Outlet for City Heights

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Have you ever taken a ceramics class? If you were lucky, maybe your high school art class or summer camp let you play around with hand building. But for most of us, we’ve either never had the chance or think of ceramics as “that thing I tried once upon a time”. For Amanda Gardner, ceramics has been a hobby since she was a kid growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.

Fast forward to adulthood and Amanda joined the coast guard. She was stationed in San Diego in 2007 and spent 4 years in the service as an electrician. After leaving the coast guard, she found herself picking up a variety of different jobs, constantly learning new skills.   [Read more…]

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