San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Liberal Group Flays Peters for Obamacare Vote

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Vote to delay penalties was not a “vote against Obamacare.”

By Andy Cohen

Congressman Scott Peters appears to have a lot of problems, even before he finishes the first year of his first term. It seems that no matter what he does, he just can’t seem to make anyone happy these days. He’s not conservative enough; he’s not liberal enough; he’s a “corporate shill”; he’s a job-killin’-regulation-lovin’ commie pinko who loves govmint too much…..or something.

It would be completely expected for bombs to be lobbed in from the right, but attacks are now coming from the left as well. A recent missive from MoveOn.org demanded that Peters explain “why (he) voted against Obamacare,” as if he suddenly joined with the House Congressional Republicans in voting (for a 37th time) to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka: Obamacare).   [Read more…]

New anti-Obamacare Campaign: Health Insurance is Bad

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By Joan McCarter / Daily Kos

They really have all lost their minds

Nullification, it’s the new black for Republicans. If you don’t like the law can’t fix it or repeal it the way it’s supposed to be done, sabotage it until it goes away. In this instance, well, good luck to them. The Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (!), like FreedomWorks (which is trying to convince uninsured people that it’s cool to be uninsured) have to convince people that either paying through the nose for insurance or going without, all to make a political point, makes sense. Because “Freedom” means never being able to go to the doctor.   [Read more…]

The Endgame Nobody Talks About: What Happens If Filner Stays in Office?

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By Doug Porter

As newspaper executive John Lynch told a civic group not long ago, the Mayor Filner story is the gift that keeps giving. And over at the UT-San Diego they’re taking that message seriously. It’s Filner Everywhere. Even in the sports section.

A search yesterday on the UT website turned up over a dozen stories with Sunday publication dates. There were side by side stories on the front page questioning who his remaining supporters might be. A newish poll was referenced three times in the printed edition. There’s even an editorial calling for an expedited process for getting rid of Mayors We Don’t Like.

And, if you follow any media, be it national, local, traditional or social, ‘everybody knows’ that the only possible outcome will involve Mayor Bob Filner leaving office, either by resignation or recall.

Today I want to question what ‘everybody knows’.   [Read more…]

Darkness Drops: Filner’s Political Death Spiral Continues and the Likely Endgame

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The fun never stops in America’s Finest City.

By Jim Miller

Last week, Irene McCormack delivered Filner the political equivalent of a deathblow. As I noted in the wake of the announcement of her case, “In contrast to the first two press conferences which I think did it the wrong way, in the press conference yesterday McCormack and Allred had fewer dramatics and more professionalism and dignity.  I think McCormack deserves to be taken seriously and respected.” And she has been.

Indeed, rather than the “drip, drip, drip” I predicted two weeks ago would “surely force him out or get him recalled”, there has been a deluge.

After McCormack, six other women came out publicly with more accusations of unprofessional and inappropriate if not illegal behavior by the mayor. In the wake of these accusations, the Democratic Party abandoned him, and on Friday he announced that he is going into a treatment program rather than resigning, assuring that this nightmare saga will continue indefinitely.   [Read more…]

Draconian Obstructions, Logical Fallacies and the Decline of America

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By Ishmael Von Heidrick-Barnes

Recently, I had to book a flight on a major airline using miles I had accrued with the carrier.  What should have been a simple transaction turned into a time-consuming labyrinth of automated answering machines and passive-aggressive procedural dead-ends.  I suspect the process was designed by lawyers to deliberately frustrate customers into giving up using the air miles awarded them.

After three days and six hours of attempting to penetrate the airline’s technological gatekeepers, I can’t say the obstructions I faced were resolved to my satisfaction.   The psychological energy required to deal with Draconian obstructions and logical fallacies left me physically exhausted (which, I will wager, was something the architects of the airline procedural guidelines were deliberately hoping to evoke).   [Read more…]

Who Are We at War With? That’s Classified

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By Cora Currier /ProPublica

In a major national security speech this spring, President Obama said again and again that the U.S. is at war with “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces.”

So who exactly are those associated forces? It’s a secret.

At a hearing in May, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked the Defense Department to provide him with a current list of Al Qaeda affiliates.

The Pentagon responded – but Levin’s office told ProPublica they aren’t allowed to share it. Kathleen Long, a spokeswoman for Levin, would say only that the department’s “answer included the information requested.”   [Read more…]

California Hunger Strike Raises Issue of Force-Feeding on U.S.

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By Christie Thompson / ProPublica

More than 12,400 inmates across California have been fasting since July 8, to protest solitary confinement and call for improved prison conditions. The strike, involving roughly two-thirds of the state’s prisons, is one of the largest in California history.

So far no prisoners have been force-fed, and the Corrections Department says they have no current plans to do so. “Hopefully no one will get to that point,” said a spokesperson for California’s corrections department. During a similar strike in 2011, the said he planned to seek court permission to force-feed inmates. (The strike ended before he did so.)

As lawmakers call for an end to the force-feeding of Guantanamo detainees, the California strike serves as a reminder: inmates on U.S. soil can ultimately be given the same treatment.   [Read more…]

The Wire’s David Simon Joins Anti-Koch Effort

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By Dylan Byers / Politico

David Simon, the creator of HBO’s “The Wire,” has joined the effort to oppose a Koch brothers takeover of the Tribune Company’s newspaper properties, which would include Simon’s former paper, The Baltimore Sun.

“When I heard that the Koch brothers, bless their hearts, were interested in purchasing newspapers — the Baltimore Sun, my alma mater, in particular — I thought, ‘Well that’s kind of the nail in the coffin,'” Simon says in a new web video for Working Families, a small labor-based political party. “Ultimately, the only chance that democracy has is that somebody stands on the outside of the excess and the fraud and calls foul. That doesn’t happen if the newspapers represent a particular ideology.”   [Read more…]

Tío Emilio and the Secrets of the Ancestors: Chapter 10 — Path of the Ancestors

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“Perhaps the time has come to not simply follow others, and instead, go a different way. I am offering you the opportunity to take a completely different path than most people walk. It is an ancient path, the path of your ancestors, a path connected with nature and the earth, connected to God and the energy of the universe. It is the way our ancestors used to live.” Tío Emilio

By Richard Juarez

As it turned out, our incident in East San Diego didn’t slip by unnoticed like we thought it did. One of the neighbors had seen us talking that night in front of Nana and Tata’s house. A few days later she asked Nana who had been driving Tata’s car and talking to her grandson and Amador’s store clerk. Of course it was a total surprise to Nana and Tata that Tío Emilio had been with Tony and me that night. So when they called and asked him about it, he told them the whole truth. And they, of course, told our parents, plus a few others.

Pretty soon everyone in both families had heard at least one or more versions of the story about how Tony and I almost died in East San Diego. In some of the versions, Pablito and Arturo were still missing. You’d think we had been arrested for some serious crime, the way everyone was yelling at us. It was as if it was the worst thing that could have happened. But nothing happened!!   [Read more…]

An Ad for America

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I have a kind of twisted mentality that is not yet described in the Physician’s Desk Reference. When I watch TV, as soon as a commercial comes on, I move up through the channels. This means that I see snippets of all 50 channels. Four channels of wealthy evangelists begging for more. At least four channels of fair and balanced.

Then comes the channel where the House of Representatives are working on some grammatical interpretation of some monumental definition of yellow. There are lots of videos of vidiots running after black and brown men chased by police dogs and their inevitable hand cuffing. The Screaming moron who straight faced tells you where to invest your money, even though he is generally full of shit more or less 50% of the time. When the trial of the week is on, the coverage goes from one channel to four channels and back again. Fair and balanced spends a lot of time trying to redefine history with all of the living Americans and their offspring from Bush’s hall of shame. They never seem to make the connection between fair and balanced and the Civil War.   [Read more…]

Sen. Ron Wyden On NSA Spying: It’s As Bad As Snowden Says

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By Ron Wyden /Alternet

If we do not seize this moment in history to reform our surveillance laws, we will all live to regret it.

Editor’s note: This is a transcript from a speech given on Tuesday, July 23, at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

When the Patriot Act was last reauthorized, I stood on the floor of the United States Senate and said, “I want to deliver a warning this afternoon. When the American people find out how their government has interpreted the Patriot Act, they are going to be stunned and they are going to be angry.”

From my position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, I had seen government activities conducted under the umbrella of the Patriot Act that I knew would astonish most Americans. At the time, Senate rules about classified information barred me from giving any specifics of what I’d seen except to describe it as “secret law”—a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, issued by a secret court, that authorizes secret surveillance programs; programs that I and colleagues think go far beyond the intent of the statute.   [Read more…]

Filner to Enter Rehab, Won’t Step Down

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By Andy Cohen

Embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner announced in a press conference this afternoon that beginning August 5 he will be entering a two week rehabilitation clinic. He announced no intentions to step down as the city’s mayor.

The treatment program he will enter, he said, will be a full time residential program. He intends to return to full time duties at City Hall on August 19.

“The behavior I have engaged in over many years is wrong and inexcusable,” Filner said in his prepared remarks. “It has undermined what I have spent my entire career working for.”

“I am responsible for my conduct. I must take responsibility for my conduct by taking action to make sure it never happens again,” said Filner.

The mayor said that his entry into a behavior modification program is only the first step in what he called an ongoing process to prove that he can and has changed, even at age 70. “I must become a better person,” he said.   [Read more…]

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