The Real News’ Jaisal Noor interviews teacher and union activist Noelanie Fuentes Cardona who tells us about Law 85 and how Puerto Rico’s Democratic governor and Betsy DeVos have teamed up to introduce charter schools and online schools to an island still coping with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Maria. [Read more…]
An Open Letter in Support of SB 1186 to Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher
By Shahid Buttar / Electronic Frontier Foundation
Dear Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher,
We live in dangerous times. The rights of people of color, immigrants, workers, women, and asylum seekers are threatened every day. As history has repeatedly shown, one of the most powerful tools of oppression is surveillance. California has the opportunity to ensure public control and oversight of the spying technologies that law enforcement is most likely to abuse. Right now, the power is in your hands to ensure it moves forward.
With each year, civil rights advocates have watched technology advance amidst a climate of growing secrecy, allowing authorities to collect more and more personal data from more and more people and store it indefinitely, without parameters for how it can be used, with whom it can be shared, or what to do if it is misused or abused. We ask you, as chair of the California Assembly Appropriations Committee, to pass S.B. 1186 out of the committee without further amendments.
We have reached the point where unchecked surveillance may pose a public safety risk as great as the ones the technology is meant to address. [Read more…]
Proposition 6: Carl DeMaio’s Endless Initiatives Strategy, Part One
The first phase of former Carl DeMaio’s plan to save the Golden State’s Grand Old Party (and himself) will appear on the November 2018 ballot as Proposition 6, the “Voter Approval for Future Gas and Vehicle Taxes and 2017 Tax Repeal Initiative.”
If approved by voters in November, the measure would amend California’s Constitution to require any gas and car tax added after January 1, 2017 be approved by voters and would repeal SB 1, the gas tax and vehicle fee hike signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2017 after it gained a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses.
Regardless of whether this year’s measure succeeds or fails, there’s another one waiting in the wings for the 2020 election. DeMaio told the Sacremento Bee he’s calling phase two the “Robin Hood initiative — stealing our money back.” [Read more…]
The Creeping Privatization of Public Libraries
By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos
At 17,566, there are more public libraries in the United States than there are Starbucks coffee shops. And just like at Starbucks, patrons have access to free wi-fi. But unlike Starbucks, public libraries will usually provide the free use of a computer as well as internet access.
Perhaps it is their very ubiquitousness that makes them such a tempting target for libertarians like the Koch brothers and right-wing economists like the one who recently suggested a takeover of libraries’ functions by Amazon.
Forbes quickly pulled the controversial op-ed by contributor Panos Mourdoukoutas, an economist and academic who felt that many of the functions of the local library, like free Wi-Fi, and movie rentals are already being filled by places like Starbucks and services like Netflix. Why shouldn’t Amazon open stores to provide books to the public? His argument included the fact that public libraries cost taxpayers money (gasp). It would be so much nicer for him if he did not have to contribute a couple of hundred dollars every year to American literacy. The American Library Association reports that the actual annual cost is $36.96 per person.
QAnon Shock Troops Amplify Trump’s Lunacy
By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos
Sometimes “deplorable” just isn’t deplorable enough. That’s the case with a core set of Donald Trump supporters who have come together around a new conspiracy theory that’s … not Pizzagate. Because it’s worse. And, as the Washington Post reports, this new conspiracy is already spilling from under the rocks of alt-Reich websites, into living, screaming Trump rallies.
Believers in “QAnon,” as the conspiracy theory is known, were front and center at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall, where Trump came to stump for Republican candidates. As the president spoke, a sign rose from the audience. “We are Q,” it read. Another poster displayed text arranged in a “Q” pattern: “Where we go one we go all.”
Who or what is QAnon? It’s the handle for a racist troll who pretends to be “a government agent with top security clearance” working with Donald Trump to take out the “Deep State.” [Read more…]
Abolish ICE: Why We Need to Abolish Immigrations and Customs Enforcement | Video Worth Watching
From the Now This YouTube page:
Sean McElwee, co-founder of Data for Progress, thinks ICE should be abolished.
“ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was created in 2003, as part of post-9/11 legislation that housed immigration enforcement under the Department of Homeland Security,” he explained. “This signaled a shift towards viewing immigrants as the threat to national security.”
After 9/11, immigrants were seen as a terrorist threat, and the policies that followed were created for mass migrant deportation. Trump and Stephen Miller have not only enforced this anti-immigration strategy, but increased it with aggressive, inhumane measures like their zero tolerance policy. ICE has been in the middle of all of this, and have become synonymous with these practices that are tearing families apart and causing long-term residents in the country to self-deport.
“We need to stop deporting people for what is fundamentally the civil violation of being in this country without documentation. We choose as a society what is criminalized and how those laws are enforced,” said McElwee. “We don’t have a militarized police force to prosecute financial crimes because the people who commit those crimes are powerful white men. We have to dismantle not just ICE, but the thousands of small offenses that put people on ICE’s radar. From marijuana possession to turnstile jumping, people enter into ICE’s net through over-criminalization.”
Why Does It Feel Like We’re Losing If There’s So Much Winning?
Is your head spinning yet? Mine is. As a certified news junkie™ I had a hard time digesting today’s headlines.
It’s a good day to remember that the only real way out of the mess we currently find ourselves in includes voting on November 6th.
Let’s start with Law and Order, White House Edition…
[Read more…]
How U.S. Involvement In Central America Led To a Border Crisis | Video Worth Watching
So many of the recent asylum seekers along our southern border are from the Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Is this just coincidence? Hardly. For anyone that’s used the term “Banana Republic” without being clear how that term originated (actually, even if you do know how the history of that term), here’s a brief look back at how U.S. involvement In Central America led to our current border crisis. [Read more…]
San Diego’s Deplorables: National City Councilman Jerry Cano
National City Councilmember Jerry Cano isn’t up for re-election until 2020. His seat on the city’s governing board should be on the November ballot, regardless.
An elected official who actually cared about doing a good job would have stepped down by now. That’s not going to happen in National City.
Last week we learned Cano’s allegation about Councilwoman Mona Rios engaging in inappropriate conduct turned out to be spurious, according to an independent investigator hired by the city attorney. The councilman ultimately rescinded the complaint after refusing to cooperate with the inquiry. [Read more…]
Out-of-Town Vacation Rental Owners Summoned for ‘Firestorm of Anger’ At City Council Meeting
When the San Diego City Council voted by a wide majority on July 16 to regulate short-term vacation rentals, it was using the democratic process to resolve an issue that has been plaguing the city and especially the beach and coastal neighborhoods for years. By a vote of 6 to 3, the bi-partisan majority vote saved coastal residences for long-term renters.
Yet, immediately, the Airbnb crowd cried foul, threatening legal suits – and more against the vote – which has to be confirmed on Wednesday, August 1 in a so-called “second reading” of the ordinance. The second reading will be at 1PM in the Council Chambers at 202 C Street, 12th floor.
So, now Airbnb, HomeAway, and local STVR operators are planning “an all-out assault” against the regulations just passed coming up for that second reading. One owner of a local mini-empire of vacation rentals has called for a “firestorm of anger” to be unleashed at the City Council meeting. [Read more…]
Fast Food Chains Forced to End ‘No Poaching’ Policies, Others Under Investigation
We have heard the argument against the “Fight for 15” campaign, which tells us fast food jobs require no skill and no expertise and, therefore, are not worthy of making $15 per hour.
That argument is rubbish, something fast food chain employers know all too well — and the primary reason behind their ‘no poaching’ policies. These policies allows food chains to block workers from changing branches in search of better pay or promotions, all while the company pays the lowest wage they can. In fact, they will even cheat these skilled workers on their already low wages hoping nobody reports them to our local Employee Rights Center or the State Labor Commissioner’s office.
Now, according to the Associated Press, the state of Washington has busted several food chains, including McDonald’s, Arby’s, Carl’s Jr., and Buffalo Wild Wings for having such policies that violate the state’s anti-trust laws. The state’s attorney general said businesses must compete for workers just as they compete with other businesses. Those chains have agreed to settle legal claims by ending those practices. [Read more…]
Summer Chronicles 2018 #7: When the Padres Still Played Baseball in Yuma
It’s the dog days of summer but it’s Spring Training all year round in San Diego as the Padres sort through their stock of minor leaguers to see who might still be around in a few years when they hope to be competitive. That means losing a lot. Watching a good amount of losing baseball requires a different lens and an appreciation for the small things inside and outside the game.
Recent efforts to increase the speed of the game are a reflection of the fear that America’s historic pastime is too slow for our constantly-plugged-in culture. We are always running, and it is not. Still, baseball is the perfect summer game because, at base, it’s timeless, lazy. There are lots of empty spaces, best felt at the lower tech, minor league parks, but still there everywhere else if you can tear your eyes away from the big screen.
Having some sense of the fact that watching baseball means occupying a seat in a larger tradition or history also helps—knowing what came before, the role the game has played in our culture. What has been lost and where the ghosts of baseball past still haunt us—the remains of old parks in Catalina, Hana, and other out of the way places where the big leaguers used to train or play. [Read more…]
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