San Diego Free Press

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Honduras: As Berta Cáceres Murder Trial Nears End, Will True Perpetrators Be Brought to Justice? | Video Worth Watching

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From the Democracy Now! website:

Eight men are on trial in Honduras for the murder of environmentalist Berta Cáceres, who was gunned down in her home in La Esperanza in 2016. A verdict is expected this week. The assassination of Cáceres came a year after she won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work protecting indigenous communities and her campaign against a massive hydroelectric dam project. We speak with Dana Frank, professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her new book is titled, “The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup.”

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UPDATED: Bauman Resigns! Democratic Party Facing Statewide and Local Leadership Challenges and Opportunities

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UPDATE: Eric Bauman has resigned as Chair of the California Democratic Party.

“I have made the realization that in order for those to whom I may have caused pain and who need to heal, for my own health, and in the best interest of the Party…it is in everyone’s best interest for me to resign my position as chair of the California Democratic Party.”

Democrats in San Diego and California certainly have plenty of reasons to feel good about the future, given the results of the 2018 mid-term election results.

Unfortunately the state party is now under a cloud. Eric Bauman, the powerful chairman of the California Democratic Party, has stepped aside pending the results of an investigation following allegations by 10 staffers and 17 other individuals concerning inappropriate behavior, sexual harassment, and physical intimidation.

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Why Would Anyone Want to Flee Beautiful Honduras?

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As thousands of Honduras camp outside the border of San Diego, their desperation is clearly evident. We’re told they are fleeing their country because of the harsh conditions there.

But isn’t Honduras a tropical paradise somewhere out there in Central America? Don’t they have a lot of neat old Spanish churches and stuff? And all those crazy and wonderful Mayan ruins. Why would anyone want to flee beautiful Honduras?

So, we have to wonder why any person would travel by foot thousands of miles through jungle, desert, towns, large cities and wilderness to reach our borders when they have plenty of nice beaches there.   [Read more…]

Thoughts and Prayers for the NRA’s $57 Million Drop in Revenue

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By Walter Einenkel / Daily Kos

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that the NRA was hurting so badly that their Fairfax, Virginia headquarters had cut out free coffee and water to their employees. Of course, we all sent out thoughts and prayers their way. According to Politico, their revenue dropped by about $57 million this past year.

The gun-rights group posted an even steeper drop in membership dues, which fell 22 percent, or $35 million, to a five-year low, according to documents the NRA filed with the Internal Revenue Service this month.   [Read more…]

McClellan-Palomar Airport: The Truth?

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On October 10, 2018, the county Board of Supervisors (BOS) adopted a 20-year plan for McClellan-Palomar (Palomar) Airport in Carlsbad and certified an EIR.

A month later, the citizens group Citizens for a Friendly Airport (see c4fa.org) filed suit challenging the county decision. A suit verdict is likely in mid or late 2019. Issues the court may have to wrestle with include:

  • Accuracy of County Project Description. In public presentations, county staff repeatedly said the purpose of extending the Palomar runway up to 800 feet was to increase aircraft safety, not to attract more aircraft. Yet several supervisors approving the Palomar Master Plan (PMP) glowingly noted Palomar’s ability to act as a “reliever” airport for overflow Lindbergh traffic.

One question for the court would be: Did the county engage in a “bait and switch” – analyzing low levels of Palomar use in the EIR, while encouraging higher use levels with Lindbergh diversions?

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Accolades for the San Diego Free Press | Readers Write

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I come not to bury the San Diego Free Press, but to praise it.

I believe in the resurrection of the soul of this Press for the people of San Diego, and the world.

Brief, shining moments have a way of sticking round in our hearts, like Camelot.   [Read more…]

Get Health Care by December 15 and Piss Off Trump | Video Worth Watching

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From the Now This YouTube website:

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump dislikes Obamacare. Paul Ryan and the Republicans in Congress tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act put in place by President Barack Obama. So how can you stick it to President Trump in 2018? Sign up for health care through Healthcare.gov. Healthcare in America has been a hot debate for decades, but if you need health insurance, you can go to Healthcare.gov and sign up for 2019. The deadline to get health care in America is December 15.

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Helter Skelter News: Administration Sex Scandal, Big Brain at Work, Rotten Romaine, Pelosi Pummels Penn

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I took a week off from writing this column over the Thanksgiving holiday. This time of year is typically slow in political circles, and it was obvious to me that Democratic wins in the midterm election would continue to accumulate. (And they have!)

These aren’t typical times, however. My morning meander through the media looking for topics, seemed like more work than trying to make a choice from one the many excellent New Orleans restaurant menus I viewed last week.   [Read more…]

There Are No Tear-Gassed Babies in Melania’s White House Version of Christmas

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By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

Despite her “There Will Be Blood” hallway and the lurid excess surrounding it – 20,000 feet of lights, 14,000 ornaments, 12,000 bows, Be Best! balls and wreaths of sharpened Be Best! pencils – there is as yet no baby in a manger. Maybe, some ruminated, her husband’s regime has already tear-gassed them all?   [Read more…]

Saying Goodbye to a Friend Who Gave Me a Helping Hand

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You know that feeling you get when a dear friend all of a sudden says something like “Well, we’re moving to Seattle next month,” and a kind of sadness sets in? Nothing devastatingly grievous or crippling, but you feel a little empty inside, knowing that your pal is no longer just down the street or across town, but gone.

That was me when I got the word that the San Diego Free Press was coming to an end because I see them as a friend, a beloved friend; because who, but a dear friend, would allow you to write about a little of everything, anytime you wanted to, and any way you wanted to, be it poetry or prose.

I can’t adequately express what a lift in my spirit the gift of having a place to vent so freely has meant to me. What can one say about being appreciated so openly and unconditionally?   [Read more…]

Swimming With The Sharks: Or, Crime Does Pay (Big) in New York’s Gilded Age | Part II

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By Mel Freilicher

Some of Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum’s “little chicks,” as she called her pack of master criminals, cultivated after the Civil War, were themselves declasse bluebloods, like Charlie Bullard, boarding school educated and classically trained, with ancestors reaching back to the Mayflower. With long, nimble fingers, ”Piano Charlie” played the instrument like a professional, was an expert safecracker, and one of the city’s most skilled and daring burglars.

The invaluable Bullard entertained her dinner guests, playing anything from Beethoven’s “Sonata in C sharp minor” to the popular “Little Brown Jug” on the white baby grand that adorned Marm’s extravagant dining room. His skills as a butcher also provided the finest cuts of meat for her dinner parties.   [Read more…]

The Fallen Nest: A Border Story

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The park’s gates had been ripped down and rebuilt, higher and fiercer than he had seen in the year he had lived near the coast. Barbed wire had been looped in a crown around the fence’s top and iron doors installed at either entrance. The nest had fallen and lay in the park beneath a tree thirty feet from the new fence.

On his daily morning walks he looked inside the park, before and after the fence’s reconstruction. The flat green grass of the park appeared so different than the faded winter brown of trees in a California city.

In the evenings, walking by the fence, he looked in the park out of habit after completing his part-time shift at the library near the border-crossing. However, the nest, a ratty gathering of dead grass, straw, and tangled stems and fibers, had fallen. It held a single gray chick, screaming. He did not know what kind of bird but even in the diminishing light, he saw the chick, plaintive and alone, in the fallen nest.   [Read more…]

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