San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Until the President Stops Deportations, We Will Stop Them Ourselves

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By Camila Ibanez

Monday morning I woke at dawn and drove an hour from Phoenix to the small town of Eloy, Arizona. It was pretty warm already and I knew the Arizona sun would only grow hotter. I grabbed my bandana and prepared to chain myself to the entrance of one of the largest detention centers with the worst reputation in the United States. There were six of us in all — two men and four women. One was 16-year-old girl named Sandy Estrada. Her brother was detained inside.

“I am doing this so he and everybody else in there knows that we support them,” she said. “Obama has the power to keep families like mine together. He hasn’t done a thing.”   [Read more…]

Robert Reich: What to Expect During the Cease-Fire

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Unfortunately, extremists, threats and possible shutdowns are still very much with us.

By Robert Reich / RobertReich.org 

The war isn’t over. It’s only a cease-fire.

Republicans have agreed to fund the federal government through January 15 and extend the government’s ability to borrow (raise the debt ceiling) through Feb. 7. The two sides have committed themselves to negotiate a long-term budget plan by mid-December.   [Read more…]

A Virtual Forum for San Diego’s Mayoral Candidates, Coming Soon

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By Doug Porter

We love elections at San Diego Free Press in much the same way some people love watching organized sporting events.

We’re unabashed partisans and usually have an opinion of the progressive/liberal/contrarian persuasion.  But, like true fans, we also like all the trappings of the event.  Voting turns us on. And we’d like everybody to do it as often as the law allows.

During the 2012 election cycle our Progressive Voter’s Guide was a major draw.  This time out we’re seeking to expand our efforts.

We’ve already published the City Clerk’s ballot statements for all 10 candidates. We’ve got biographic info lifted verbatim from the candidates’ websites.  And we’re updating with new links about each contender every so often. (SDFP will get around –or not– to doing an endorsement after we published all this info and had a meeting that will last way too damn long.)   [Read more…]

The New Radical is Conservative

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by Bob Dorn

Back in 1967, when I was still basically a kid, a 24-year-old graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, freshly aflame with notions about social justice and the proper role of America in the world, I visited my parents in Phoenix and got into an argument with my father over Vietnam.

It would be unfair to try and recreate it; I’m older now than he was then, and memory often serves our egoes more faithfully than it does the truth. But I can say for sure that he finally grew so exasperated that he proclaimed to me that he was ready for another World War to end the horror and, by God, we should start it and get it over with.

I told him I had nothing more to say to him about that tragic war. But even then I knew this was not considered a radical notion among many, many Arizonans.

American politics has long accepted the notion that its only radicals are on the left. My father, being an adult when he took his kids to Phoenix, had long since become a Goldwater Republican.

And of course, it was Goldwater who famously proclaimed, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
  [Read more…]

San Diego’s Mayoral Candidates on Walkable Neighborhoods: Walking the Walk or only Talking the Talk?

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Editor: The following article is a repost from UrbDeZine San Diego, and as such only reflects the opinion of its author, Bill Adams.

By Bill Adams / UrbDeZine San Diego / October 7, 2013

J Street looking East in Downtown San Diego“Walkable neighborhoods” and “liveable streets” are terms that are receiving a lot of play these days. San Diego’s special mayoral election is no exception.

All of the candidates are grabbing the walkable neighborhoods / livable streets banner, encouraged by programs such as the Livable Streets Mayoral Candidate Speakers Series put on by the Livable Streets Coalition, a joint effort of several environmental, smart growth, and non-auto transporation groups.   [Read more…]

California potable reuse study gets a boost with SB 322

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by George J Janczyn / GrokSurf’s San Diego

Many people will remember that in September 2010 Gov. Schwarzenegger signed into law SB 918 which required the State Department of Public Health to investigate the feasibility of developing uniform water recycling criteria for direct potable reuse, and to provide a final report on that investigation to the Legislature.

Locals may now be experiencing a feeling of déjà vu after reading U-T San Diego’s report about SB 322 signed by Governor Brown (Brown signs bill to boost SD ‘toilet-to-tap’ plans).
  [Read more…]

Department of Duh: Congressman Issa Investigating Why Monuments Closed During Shutdown

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By Doug Porter

You have to give this guy credit.

Rep. Darrell Issa never misses a chance to make Congress look silly.  I’ve lost track of all his investigations, but I do know one thing; the sum total of their actual impact on government operations (the thing he’s supposed to be overseeing) has been: Zero.

His latest crusade involves getting to the bottom of just why park service Director Jonathan Jarvis closed monuments on the national mall in Washington DC.   [Read more…]

A Short Lived Victory for Barrio Logan

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Maritime Industry Ramps Up Anti-Residents Referendum

By Brent E. Beltrán

The residents of San Diego’s neglected Barrio Logan neighborhood gained a significant win Tuesday over maritime industry’s attempt to derail the community plan update. On a 5-4 party line vote Democratic members of the San Diego City Council held firm in their resolve to do what is right for the people who live in Barrio Logan.

This was the second and final vote the city council made to implement the updated Barrio Logan Community Plan, the first significant update since 1978.

Over time the new plan will help separate unhealthy industry and businesses away from residential areas and create a buffer zone of non-polluting businesses between homes and those enterprises that are toxic to the neighborhood.   [Read more…]

The Cruelty and Ignorance of the Tea Party Republicans

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By Andy Cohen

Reports out of Washington today are that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and their contingents have reached an agreement to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling. If the deal is passed, the government will reopen until at least January 15, and the debt ceiling will be raised until February 7, while putting the framework in place for a round of overall budget negotiations.

Talks between the two Senate leaders were put on hold yesterday in order to allow Speaker Feckless and his merry band of House Hooligans one last chance to pass a plan of their own to bring this latest debacle of American political (nee, Republican) incompetence to an end.

They failed. Miserably. Speaker Feckless brought several different measures before his House Republican Caucus in an effort to prove how in control he is and to ostensibly preserve the “Hastert Rule,” whereby only measures that can earn a majority of the majority are brought to the floor for a vote.   [Read more…]

Judgement Day: Filner Plea Bargains, Boehner Begs for Help

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By Doug Porter

It’s one of those twists of fate: the former standard bearer for all that’s liberal in San Diego and the former standard bearer for all that’s not liberal in Washington DC both hit bottom on the same day.

We’ll start with the local courtroom drama and end with DC’s cloakroom conspiracies in the nation’s capital. There are lessons to learned from both.

Robert Earl Filner stood before California State Superior Court Judge Robert Trentacosta  and pled guilty to one felony count of false imprisonment by violence, fraud, menace and deceit and two misdemeanor counts of battery.   [Read more…]

Former Mayor Filner Pleads Guilty

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By Andy Cohen

Former San Diego mayor Bob Filner pleaded guilty to three criminal counts yesterday in San Diego Superior Court, according to the California State Attorney General’s office. As a part of a plea deal, Filner pled guilty to one felony count of false imprisonment and two misdemeanor counts of battery.

The deal puts an end to one of the most troubling periods in San Diego’s complicated political history, and closes the book on one of the city’s most polarizing political figures. Filner resigned from office on August 23.   [Read more…]

Career Politician Teams Up With Enron Billionaire to Gut Californians’ Retirement

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By Steve Smith/California Labor Federation

It’s official. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a career politician with backing from a Texas billionaire and former Enron trader, has filed a ballot measure to strip away retirement security from current teachers, firefighters, sanitation workers and other public servants.

According to the Sacramento Bee:

“The Pension Reform Act of 2014” would alter California’s constitution to allow state and local government employers to cut pensions for current workers.

Essentially, this means politicians would have the power to unilaterally slash the retirement of current workers, breaking a promise made to those workers when they were hired. Many of those public workers affected don’t receive Social Security. They have a modest pension that averages around $26,000 per year. They’re not responsible for the financial mess created by the Wall St. collapse, yet politicians like Reed are all too quick to scapegoat them — and out-of-state billionaires like former Enron executive John Arnold are all too happy to exploit them for profit.   [Read more…]

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