San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Congressman Darrell Issa’s Obstruction of Obamacare Website Fixes Under Fire

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By Doug Porter

Once again, Vista’s GOP Congressman Darrell Issa is proving to the country that he’d rather be on the evening news than actually do any work in Washington DC.

Issa is so eager to get to the bottom of the Healthcare.gov “scandal” that he’s willing to stop the people working to fix it so he can grab a few headlines. After all, he’s got to do something in light of his Benghazi and IRS investigations going nowhere.

This week he wants answers directly from White House Chief of Technology Todd Park, who already responded positively to an earlier request to appear, and he wants them Now.   [Read more…]

The Military Enlistment Opportunity Act: a New Kind of Draft?

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 By Rick Jahnkow / Draft Notices

It’s well established that many people who join the U.S. military do so because of their economic status. It could be that they do not see options for a civilian job that pays a livable wage, they cannot afford health insurance, or they believe they’ll never be able to go to college without financial aid from the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Whether this belief is accurate or based on an individual’s limited awareness of alternatives, military recruiters are effective at exploiting economic predicament to meet their monthly quotas. Many of us refer to it as economic conscription or the “poverty draft.” It is the reason why counter-recruitment groups spend much of their time and energy gathering and distributing information on alternative sources for job training and college financial aid.

Recruitment success rates have always been strongly affected by the economy, and the high unemployment rate since the economic crash of 2008 has made it much easier for the military to meet its enlistment quotas. If, on the other hand, the economy continues its gradual improvement, we can expect that recruiting will once again become difficult and the armed forces will be scrambling to find a larger pool of people to tap to fill their ranks. This looming problem has already been projected and mentioned to members of Congress by Pentagon representatives.   [Read more…]

San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith Get Some Much Needed Scrutiny

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By Doug Porter

The people’s prosecutors.

They’re chosen by voters in both San Diego City and County and charged with the responsibility of protecting our interests. Today we’ll look at recent news accounts suggesting there’s much to be desired in assessing the job performance of County DA Bonnie Dumanis and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith.

I’ll also recap developments in the mayoral race (new poll results!) including a young union organizer reading Nathan Fletcher the riot act, a high profile endorsement of David Alvarez that compares him to Jackie Robinson, and a gaggle of of young Republicans from around the state taking to the streets for “super candidate” Kevin Faulconer…   [Read more…]

Fletcher Floundering, Alvarez Ascending, and Other Tales of Fear and Loathing from the Campaign Trail

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By Jim Miller

This just in: it appears that Nathan Fletcher’s claims of inevitability have evaporated as the race to meet Kevin Faulconer in the run off is a dead heat leaning Alvarez heading into the last week. The internal polling in all three camps shows Faulconer having consolidated the Republican vote as Fletcher’s early name ID-fueled lead has collapsed, and Alvarez has continued to steadily trend upwards.

More specifically, the most recent numbers from the AFT tracking poll over the weekend have Faulconer at 37.2%, Alvarez at 21.7%, and Fletcher trailing but still barely within the margin of error at 16.3%. Mike Aguirre has 2.5% and a big 20.5 % are still undecided. Hence the trend we are seeing is one of Alvarez slowly tracking up and Fletcher sinking like a lead weight.

Those who follow politics closely know that the trend line is what matters most at this point in a campaign and this bodes well for Alvarez.   [Read more…]

Heartless for the Holidays

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Why do rich and powerful people engage in callous behavior?

By Sam Pizzigati / Otherwords

Scrooge has come early this year. He’s already kicking our Tiny Tims. This holiday season, kids in America’s poorest families will have less to eat.

November 1 brought $5 billion in new cuts to the nation’s food stamp program, now officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Poor families are losing on average 7 percent of their food aid, calculates the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. A mother with two kids will lose $319 over the rest of the current federal fiscal year. The cuts could cost some families a week’s worth of meals a month, says the chief of America’s largest food bank.

More cuts are looming. A House of Representatives majority is demanding an additional $39 billion in “savings.” Ohio and other states, in the meantime, are moving to limit food stamp eligibility.   [Read more…]

California’s Progressive Leverage

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By Tom Hayden / The Peace Exchange Bulletin

Governor Jerry Brown is finding California to be an effective Archimedean leverage point in shaping a progressive alternative to a federal system stalemated by the New Civil War.

The latest example is a West Coast pact to combat climate change by the governments of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, a region populated by 53 million people with a GDP of $2.8 trillion.

The plan will produce energy savings, green jobs and greenhouse gas reductions, and will exploit any new Obama emissions standards that will eliminate new coal plants. California also will soon forge a carbon-reducing trading market with Quebec. The growing clean energy bloc will pressure for adoption of a new global energy agreement in 2015.   [Read more…]

Time is Running Out to Save the Post Office

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5 steps to revive a valuable public institution–and why it matters.

By David Morris /On The Commons

In July 2011 the United States Postal Service (USPS) management announced it would rapidly close 3600 local post offices and eventually as many as 15,000. And shutter half the nation’s mail processing centers.

A frenzy of grassroots activity erupted as citizens in hundreds of towns mobilized to save a treasured institution that plays a key and sometimes a defining role in their communities. Only when Congress appeared ready to impose a six month moratorium on closures and consolidations that December did USPS management agree to a voluntarily moratorium of the same length.

That moratorium ended in May 2012. Rather than proceed with closings, management embraced a devilishly clever new strategy. Instead of closing 3600 it would slash the hours of 13,000 post offices. That could be accomplished very quickly because reduction in hours, unlike outright closures, requires little if any justification while appeals are very limited.

Germany circa 1940 would have envied the efficiency of the USPS’s blitzkrieg against itself and America’s rural communities. By November 2013, almost 8,000 post offices already have seen hours whacked.   [Read more…]

Fear for Safety of ‘Missing’ Pussy Riot Member

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By Staff / Amnesty International UK

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, imprisoned member of Russian punk group Pussy Riot, has disappeared. She was reportedly put into a car on the 22 October, apparently to be transferred to another penal colony from the one she was held at previously. Her whereabouts remain unknown, and there are serious concerns regarding her safety and wellbeing.

Russian law only obliges the penal service authorities to notify one of a prisoner’s family members as to his or her whereabouts within ten days following the prisoner’s arrival at a new penal colony. However, there are no legal limitations as to how long a prisoner can be in transit.   [Read more…]

Tío Emilio and the Secrets of the Ancestors: Chapter 25 — Ending

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“You must now go deeper, on your own, and allow your own awareness, the knowledge of your higher self, to emerge. As you practice quieting your mind and allowing your full self to emerge, you will be guided internally to live your life to the fullest, in joy and happiness, creating and experiencing all that you can dream and desire. Your world is ready for you to call it forth.” Don Emilio

By Richard Juarez

The next day Tony and I met with Don Emilio and excitedly told him about our amazing experience at the showdown with the guys, and our surprise at the outcome. Don Emilio, of course, seemed not at all surprised that our friends were so supportive of our studies with him, and that they had an interest in learning some of it too. He said this usually happens wherever he teaches young people. Their friends find out about it and want to know more. Young people, he said, seem to have a thirst for this hidden knowledge, and are more open to it than those of previous generations who may carry remnants of the taboos against “the old ways.”   [Read more…]

My Meet-and-Greet with Michael Aguirre

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By Judi Curry

One of the goals I had set for myself during this mayoral election was to meet each of the candidates running for office. The only exception to this goal was a meeting with Kevin Faulconer, since he is my representative already and I know more about him than I need to know before voting.

I have met with David Alvarez – and try as I might to meet with Nathan Fletcher I was thwarted all the way. And although a Michael Aguirre supporter, I felt that he did not have a chance of winning the election and I would need to look at others running for office.

However, I received an invitation to meet and greet Mike Friday at a home in Point Loma, and decided that since I had not made my final decision yet, this was a good time to hear what Mike had to say in person.   [Read more…]

Nearly 1,000 Flood NFL Stadium Demanding ‘Horrendous’ Redskins Name Must Go

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‘We’re raising up and saying anybody who denigrates any class of people like that needs to be stopped.’

via Common Dreams

Calling for the Washington Redskins to retire their “inherently racist” name once and for all, nearly 1,000 protesters came out against the controversial NFL team on Thursday night, flooding the streets outside the Minneapolis Metrodome Stadium where they were set to face off against the hometown Minnesota Vikings.

“[The name] conveys the murdered scalps of indigenous people — men, women and children,” Alan Yelsey, who identified himself as an organizer for the American Indian Movement, told the Washington Post. “And that name is just a horrendous name for all of these people and for anybody of color… we’re raising up and saying anybody who denigrates any class of people like that needs to be stopped.”

The demonstration, described by Yelsey as a ‘consciousness-raising walk,’ is part of an upsurge of protest demanding the Redskins change their name.   [Read more…]

New Momentum Behind Expanding Social Security

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By Joan Carter / Daily Kos

The effort to change the narrative on Social Security got another big backer this week, when Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) signed on to legislation that would expand Social Security instead of cutting it. Brown talked to Greg Sargent about the legislation, about how to start injecting some reality into the political discussion about the program, and about why Democrats need to be going on offense on entitlements.

“There are two fundamental numbers that make this a moral case for Democrats to make,” Brown told me in an interview today. “One is that a third of seniors rely on Social Security for virtually their entire income. The other is that more than half of seniors rely on Social Security for significantly more than half their income.” […]

  [Read more…]

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