San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Is It Gerrymandering? Final Vote at Grossmont-Union High School District

by

By Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine

Grosssmont-Union High School District’s board is expected to cast a final vote Thursday at 4 p.m. on controversial redistricting maps. The board will also vote to seek a waiver from the state from a requirement that would ordinarily requiring putting the redistricting measure on the ballot, and waiver from a state requiring that new trustee area plans be in effect at least 120 days before the next election in November. (View meeting notice. The meeting will be at the East County Regional Education Center, 924 East Main Street, El Cajon.)   [Read more…]

Past Fatal Shootings of Civilians by San Diego Police

by

Call for Federal Investigation Echos Earlier Cries for Reform After Shootings of OBceans Danny the Walker and Tony Tumminia

Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

Every now and then, San Diegans get so outraged by police shootings of civilians who are usually unarmed, that they do something about it, whether through protest, or art – or by calls for the Department of Justice to come to town and investigate excess shootings by San Diego Police.

Just yesterday, February 17th, the ACLU and 26 San Diego groups and law firms called on the US Justice Department for an investigation into the SDPD’s use of force when encountering people living with mental illness. We certainly applaud this effort to bring a spotlight to an ugly underside of San Diego.   [Read more…]

Dan Watman’s Quest To Create A Binational Garden Led To Civil Disobedience

by

By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

Friendship Park, located at the most southwesterly point of the U.S.-Mexico border, exists thanks to a small group of men and women who have come together over time to call themselves Friends of Friendship Park. From about 2006 to 2011 their civil disobedience forced Border Patrol to negotiate access to this binational space, which the federal government would have preferred to keep closed.   [Read more…]

Securing the U.S.-Mexico Border?

by

By Herman Baca

Of all the immigration proposals, the one supported by a majority of white Americans is, “securing the border.” According to proponents it is because, “illegal immigration threatens America’s quality of life, is linked to terrorism, drug smuggling, human sex trade, murder, and other crimes that threaten the safety of (white) Americans.” The real reason (in my opinion) is because the issue has been historically misidentified to white Americans by U.S. political/corporate interests and the news media. Defined as an immigration/criminal rather than a labor issue? Other reasons are historical…white supremacy, nativism, and the inherent racism of white Americans.   [Read more…]

Winter 2016 AFL-CIO Executive Meeting Topics: Economic Inequality, Democracy in America

by

The executive council of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 56 unions representing 12.5 million members, has been meeting in San Diego this week. The agenda for the gathering suggests a growing enthusiasm for broad political actions, going beyond the specific needs of organized labor.

The Big Story, according to mainstream media outlets, has been the decision not to make a presidential endorsement. The reasoning behind that decision, and just about everything else happening at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel is no secret though it would be easy to think it was from the lack of local coverage.   [Read more…]

I Don’t Mourn Scalia’s Passing

by

The man who gave us Citizens United and Bush vs Gore is gone from the face of the earth. I for one do not mourn his passing. His decisions have not only contributed to the destruction of the US, but major portions of the world as well, and he was set to destroy the world consensus on climate change which would have destroyed the entire planet.

It was Scalia who said that unlimited corporate campaign spending is something “we should celebrate rather than condemn,” (Citizens United), that vote-counting should be halted for causing “irreparable harm” to the candidate who might lose as a result (Bush v. Gore), that protecting the right to vote is an odious example of “racial entitlements” (comments related to Shelby County v. Holder), and that allowing local anti-discrimination laws to protect gays and lesbians amounts to “special treatment of homosexuals” (Romer v. Evans), the 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to bear arms just to name a few of the highlights of his ignominious career.   [Read more…]

Obama’s Budget Contains Some Small Victories for Immigrant Advocates

by

By ChaKiara Tucker / Communications Coordinator for Alliance San Diego

Recently, President Obama revealed the budget for 2017, his final budget as Commander-In-Chief. The $4.7 trillion financial blueprint is a proposal of how this country should appropriate funds, and will be sent to Congress for revisions and approval.   [Read more…]

John Oliver Takes on Abortion. Yes, He Goes ‘There’—and He Goes There Well

by

By Leslie Salzillo / Daily Kos

Talk show hosts are not known to expand on the subject of abortion. But John Oliver is not the average nighttime host and wades his way into a plethora of deep controversial issues. The Last Week Tonight political humorist started off his Sunday night show with an interesting attention-grabber and segue.   [Read more…]

The Needed Fix For Our Broken Political-Economic System

by

By Frank Thomas

I admire Bernie’s outspoken, honest portrayal of the breakdown of our egalitarian democracy – “a government of, for and by the people” – by a corrupt, immoral plutocratic political-economic ESTABLISHMENT threatening the very existence of our democracy. I was appalled by David Brooks’ disingenuous critique of Bernie’s call for a ‘political revolution’- systemic reform for a systemically broken, money corrupted governance. Brooks beguilingly discredits Bernie’s bold ideas in the recent article, Livin’ Bernie Sanders’s Danish Dream.

Brooks conservative polemic is the standard ‘Bernie is neither realistic nor pragmatic’ brainwashing line that Hillary, Republican presidential candidates, Tea Party people, and media are all chanting in a no-holds-barred attempt to degrade Bernie’s candidacy for the presidency. Brooks parrots the Washington Post’s editorial theme, Bernie Sanders’s Fiction-Filled Campaign.   [Read more…]

San Diego Enters Phase One of the Stadium Shakedown

by

After Chargers owner Dean Spanos got his ass handed to him by the National Football League in rejecting (30-2) a joint Chargers/Raiders stadium atop a dump in Carson, San Diego started to look like a viable alternative for the future of the franchise.

True to form in a city where “a hotel tax isn’t a tax because we say so,” City Attorney Jan Goldsmith held forth via a weekend article in the Union-Tribune on the terms and conditions for the upcoming “citizens initiative” for funding a new football stadium at the old location.   [Read more…]

What A New Supreme Court Means for Unions, Education Funding, and the Future of California

by

With the death of Antonin Scalia on February 13th, public sector unions in America were given a reprieve from what was sure to be a bad ruling in the Friedrichs v CTA case before the Supreme Court. As Michael Hiltzik explained in the Los Angeles Times:

The target of the Friedrichs lawsuit, and several others just like it, is the “agency” or “fair share” fee. Under the law and according to a 1977 Supreme Court decision known as the Abood case, unionized public employees can be assessed nonmember fees to cover solely the cost of negotiations and contract enforcement, without being compelled to join the union and support its political activities by paying full union dues. That’s the arrangement in California.   [Read more…]

No, Bernie Sanders is Not a Modern-day George McGovern

by

By Susan Grigsby /Daily Kos

Thom Hartmann wrote that Bernie Sanders should not be compared to George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee who was buried by Nixon’s CREEP in a landslide. I happen to agree—and while our reasons may differ, our conclusions are the same.

Instead of harkening back to McGovern, Sanders’ candidacy more closely resembles that of Barry Goldwater. Granted, their political views are worlds apart, but they both are movement candidates. Radical revolutionaries.

Barry Goldwater was a man of integrity, and no matter how much you may despise his principles, he never betrayed them. His book, The Conscience of a Conservative, inspired young people across the nation and its impact is still being felt today.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry