San Diego’s legal establishment is rolling out the big guns today at a noon press conference on the sidewalk in front of the Superior Court building downtown. They’re gathering a gaggle of retired judges, prominent attorneys and past heads of the local Bar Association to make sure that the public is aware that judicial candidate Jim Miller, Jr. has been rated as “Lacking qualifications” in the race for Office 25 of the San Diego Superior Court.
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The Starting Line— DeMaio ‘Malarkey’ Fails to Stick in Mayoral Contest
DeMaio Was for Pension Bonds Before He Was Against Them
City Councilman Kevin Falconer and other local backers of Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio pressed forward yesterday with attacks aimed at challenger Congressman Bob Filner. Earlier in the day they were beating the drum about Filner’s earlier advocacy of pension obligation bonds as a solution to San Diego’s financial crisis. The Congressman has maintained in recent statements that voter approval of last June’s Proposition B makes the bonds unnecessary.
The DeMaio campaign went silent on that subject when local Dems unearthed evidence that the City Councilman also had a past history of supporting such bonds. A 2004 report from DeMaio’s Performance Instititute (funded by U-T San Diego publisher Doug Manchester), DeMaio offered a blanket endorsement of the reforms proposed by the City’s Pension Reform Committee, which included issuance of $600 million in pension obligation bonds to address the City’s unfunded pension liabilities…
Having failed at this round of attacks, the DeMaio campaign shifted gears, calling a press conference outside his campaign headquarters in Murphy Canyon to denounce Congressman Filner’s participation in Congressional junkets funded by “special interests”. (Oh, so much more inside….) [Read more…]
The Starting Line—UT-San Diego Soviet-Style Election Coverage. Are Airbrushed Photos Next?
UT-San Diego editor Jeff Light has always challenged critics of the paper’s ownership to see if they can find any bias in the paper’s news coverage that reflects the unabashed right wing political leanings of publisher Doug Manchester and CEO John Lynch. One need look no further than today’s edition of the paper and its failure to report any forum or debate occurring in San Diego yesterday that might have aired views in opposition to UT-San Diego’s editorial stances.
There were six, count em, six, debates and forums throughout San Diego yesterday, but for readers of our daily newspaper the only one that occurred was the “televised” event that was staged in UT-San Diego’s broadcast studio.
Not mentioned in today’s paper were a debate between candidates for the San Diego City Council District One seat, a forum for SDUSD School Board candidates, sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Up for Ed, a Balboa Park rally held by supports of school bond construction Proposition Z, a multi-candidate (six contenders, including Mayoral candidate Bob Filner and Congressional candidate Scott Peters appeared) forum on sustainability issues, and a PTA sponsored appearance by civil rights lawyer Molly Munger in support of Proposition 38. [Read more…]
The Starting Line – DeMaio’s Second Calendar Revealed; Private Meetings with Developers Don’t Count
For several weeks now mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio has been at the center of a controversy regarding his relationship with media mogul and developer Doug Manchester in connection with plans for a proposed football stadium at the site of the Tenth Avenue Port Terminal. A news account last week quoted Manchester’s CEO John Lynch bragging in an email about having a mayoral candidate in tow who was favorable towards their plans.
Now it’s come out via a report by KPBS/I-Newsource Investigations Desk that meetings beyond those previously disclosed were held between the developer and the candidate.
This story tool another twist yesterday when Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis revealed that UT-San Diego CEO Lynch was now on record as admitting that he’d threatened via email to use the newspaper’s clout to lead a campaign to disband the San Diego Port Authority. The warning was made in the context of an email exchange between Lynch and Port Commissioner Scott Peters regarding a potential lease (since ratified) with the Dole Fruit Company on part of the embarcadero that was included in the UT-San Diego’s proposal for a football stadium. [Read more…]
The Starting Line –GOP Voter Registration Fraud Program Continues to Unfold; Is There a San Diego Connection?
Does anybody remember the Fox News generated story about voter fraud allegedly perpetrated by ACORN during the 2008 election cycle? The sum total of their evidence was that individuals were attempting to scam the voter registration system by turning in falsified forms. No monies from the Democratic Party were ever tied to ACORN, nor was there proof that any of the fake voters actually attempted to vote.
It should be noted that actual voter fraud (where somebody casts an illegal vote), despite regular histrionics by right wing zealots, is exceedingly rare.
Now there is a nation-wide voter registration scandal unfolding involving companies directly funded by both State and National Republican Party groups, and over at Fox News there’s not a peep to be heard. [Read more…]
The Dove and the Cockerel: Chapter 3
Colin took the Tenth Avenue exit, heading into Downtown, south past Broadway. He came to a stop at Tenth and G Street. Looking west, he saw at least twenty police cars barricading G Street — four about mid-block, six at the intersection with Seventh Avenue, the remainder at the intersection with Eighth Avenue. All but two or three of the units had the red, blue and amber overhead lights activated, bouncing colors off the windows and walls of the surrounding buildings; something akin to an outdoor disco.
The Fed’s Quantitative Easing Policy: What’s In It For You?
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, has been in the business of printing money. His program is euphemistically called “Quantitative Easing (QE).” In September 2012 Bernanke announced QE3 in which the Fed would purchase $40 billion of mortgage backed securities per month indefinitely.
There had been QE1 and QE2 previously, which were one time injections of capital into the nations’ money supply. All theses QEs have resulted in one thing: interest rates have been brought down to practically zero. This may be great for people wanting to buy a car or a house, but for savers, like senior citizens, they have been robbed from gaining any interest on their savings accounts.
They might as well have put their money in their mattresses. [Read more…]
The Myth of the Filibuster-Proof Democratic Senate
Republicans have magically, mystically turned 72 days into two full years.
We’ve heard it over and over and over again. Mitch McConnell has gleefully used it as a cudgel. Congressional Republicans typically can’t wait to get their mugs on camera to tell America just how inept Congressional Democrats are in order to aid their case that they should be put back in power. After all, Democrats couldn’t get anything done even with a 60 vote, filibuster-proof majority in the United States Senate during the first two years of the Obama administration. [Read more…]
The Starting Line – Desperate Days at the UT-San Diego: Will the Tag ‘Mayberry by the Sea’ Stick?
The malaise of the local media scene took a turn for the worse over the weekend as Publisher “Papa Doug” Manchester and his sidekick John Lynch took a hard right hand turn and drove the local daily newspaper off the cliff of delusional insanity. Today we’ll bring you up to date with the latest developments in what is quickly becoming a national embarrassment for San Diego, share some local reactions to his latest jaw-dropping moves and contemplate the underlying causes of the Mission Valley media mogul’s machinations.
No More ‘Wisconsin’ in the West: Why We Must Defeat Proposition 32
It’s Citizens United on Steroids, a Bill of Rights for Billionaires
Last week, I addressed how the Governor’s tax measure was needed to stop the cuts to education and vital public services. The passage of Proposition 30 would indeed help California begin to turn the corner and finally stop the hemorrhaging of our education system. But where the passage of Proposition 30 would bring hope, the passage of Proposition 32, on the other hand, would kill it.
Proposition 32, the Special Exemptions Act, is a corporate power grab that would totally eliminate unions’ ability to take part in politics while leaving the rich, corporate special interests, and Super PACs untouched. It is Citizens United on Steroids, a Bill of Rights for Billionaires that would permanently eliminate working peoples’ voices from California politics. At present, corporate interests already outspend unions by nearly 15-1. What Proposition 32 would do is transform the political contest in California, where the privileged are already playing with a stacked deck, into a hopelessly rigged game. [Read more…]
The Starting Line –Carl DeMaio Visits the Beach, Discovers the Environment (Not a Flip-Flop)
Inhaling the OB vapors?.. Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio got a taste of Ocean Beach the other night, when he attended a forum sponsored by the OB Town Council, and he’s emerged from the experience a changed man, judging from his actions yesterday. The City Councilman, whose San Diego League of Conservation Voters Environmental Report Card scores for the past years have averaged D minus, took to Twitter to declare “We must make our environment a priority” and added a link to his campaign website to back up the claim. UPDATE: The OBRag responds to DeMaio’s new-found cause.
DeMaio announced a “Clean Coasts 2020 Plan” with six bullet points and a pledge to release additional “reforms” over the weekend as part of a coastal walking tour. The main idea contained in his web announcement was the creation of a new “Environment & Stormwater Department” as part of city government during a DeMaio administration. We can only hope that he doesn’t encounter any of the “storm waters” on the side streets of Pacific Beach in the evenings this weekend. [Read more…]
The Starting Line — The DeMaio Campaign: Today San Diego, Tomorrow California?
Moving on up… Could it be the Carl DeMaio is using the race for the Mayor’s office in San Diego as a stepping stone for bigger things? If last night’s Orange County fundraiser was any indication, the answer is yes. Let’s start with DeMaio’s own website’s description of the Newport Beach event, billed by some as a chance to show their support for the “next Scott Walker”, as in Scott Walker, the Wisconsin Governor who’s become a hero to conservatives around the country:
DeMaio has been leading the “reform movement” in San Diego for years and is the author of the groundbreaking Comprehensive Pension Reform ballot measure. After cleaning up San Diego’s fiscal crisis, DeMaio is turning his focus on job creation and state-wide reform.
Want to get reform in California? Then support Carl DeMaio as the “reformer with results” who is achieving fiscal reform and economic opportunity not only in San Diego, but articulating a vision for reform in California!!
The emailed flyer for the event billed him as “State leader to cut pensions”. His hosts included Republican National Committee member Shawn Steele, Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, Flash Report publisher Jon Fleischman, Inland Energy honcho Buck James, and Lincoln Club Vice Chair Wayne Lindholm. It was a heavyweight group of supporters; Baugh actually brought Scott Walker to OC last year. Given that none of his hosts have any vested interests in San Diego, and are all considered big time players at the State level, it seems pretty clear that Carl DeMaio is being groomed for bigger and better things.
We have to wonder how the “swing” voters in San Diego would react if he was campaigning locally as the next Scott Walker, whose popularity with Koch/SuperPAC set might be off-putting to those who are of the less-than-true blue conservative pursuation. [Read more…]