San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The Starting Line— “Reform and Jobs” is the New Mantra (and Big Lie) of the Plutocracy

by

June 12, 2012—The Big Reality about last weeks elections is that nearly three quarters of voters in California didn’t bother to cast a ballot. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, TV ads blared non stop, internet sites were plastered with political come-ons and mailboxes were overflowing with conflicting messages. Voting “Yes” on Proposition XXX would create jobs; voting “No” on the same measure would save the middle class. Middle of the road Democrats were cast as extremists; candidates whose campaign coffers overflowed with lobbyist cash packaged themselves as reformers. Even people who live and breathe politics (me, for instance) were disgusted and overwhelmed by the onslaught.

The “win at any cost” ethos combined with California’s top two vote getters primary system created situations where campaigns maneuvered to “pick” their opponents (Democratic slime ball and insurance company prostitute Juan Vargas is exhibit A-IMHO-See inside for supporting links) for the November general elections and inter-party battles left both campaign workers and candidates disillusioned and disgusted by the system. It’s safe to say that little “d” democracy may have been the ultimate loser last week. Steve Singiser at Daily Kos has more insights into ‘the results behind the results’, including the observation that independent candidates, who were supposed to be embolded by the new California primary system, fared poorly statewide.   [Read more…]

Mitt Romney: Vulture Capitalist

by

Criticisms of Mitt Romney’s background at Bain Capital and his record as a “job creator” are fair game.

I have never heard so many conservative pundits offering gratuitous avuncular advice to Barack Obama that his campaign strategy attacking Bain Capital will not get him anywhere. Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe on msnbc and others have gone on and on about how using Bain Capital against Mitt Romney is not a good strategy. Well, when conservatives offer advice to Barack Obama about what will or will not work for him, Obama better do just the opposite of what they recommend because ultimately they want him to lose. Therefore, he should double down, not abandon, the Bain Capital strategy.   [Read more…]

Some observations on the end of the Presidential Primary and San Diego

by

By Mateo Camarillo

The Presidential Primary election is over. The following are some observations.

The election day turn out in the city of San Diego was 28%. Some mail in ballots are still being counted that will raise the level to +/- 1/3%. This is the lowest level since voters were debating whether the country should enter WWII in 1940. This level of disinterest is reflected in several ways including two city council districts races that were uncontested (only one candidate).

In District 9, a Latino majority District, the civic participation as reflected in 9,880 total votes cast out of 53,098 eligible voters was 18.6% voter participation for a contested race. Two districts had only one candidate needing a total of one vote to win. They had almost twice the number of votes cast than the votes cast in D 9. A democracy works when voters have a choice and the majority participates.   [Read more…]

The 99% and All that Stuff is a Movement That’s All About US

by

The 99% and all that stuff
is a movement that’s all about US
and with that in mind
one might opine
that many of US
can remember times
when we could barely
pay the rent
and when the rent
was made good with all good intent
the food money
was gone…spent.
So broke
you couldn’t afford to
take time to resent
the predictament…..   [Read more…]

Bob Filner Silences the Doubters

by

After a slow start to his mayoral campaign, Filner finishes the primary season in a previously unthinkably strong position to become San Diego’s next mayor.

Bob Filner survived. Not only did he survive, but he pretty much thrived. It was widely expected that UT-San Diego darling Carl DeMaio would cruise through to the November general election for Mayor of San Diego, but it was very much in doubt right up until the polls closed and the votes began to be tallied who his challenger would be, and how close the margin between that challenger and DeMaio would be.   [Read more…]

San Diego Primary Election Update: June 11th Edition

by

The latest results are in, and with only 26,000 provisional and absentee ballots left to be counted, narrow leads are becoming more and more solidified:   [Read more…]

Final San Diego City Budget Hearing Today – Monday, June 11th – Modest Increases Anticipated for Core Services

by

The San Diego City Council will cast its final vote at 2:00 pm today – June 11th – on Mayor Jerry Sanders’ budget for fiscal year 2013. Sanders released his budget in April. Stronger than projected although still modest revenue increases this past year enabled Sanders to address General Fund cuts that have occurred with regularity over the past years, with libraries and park and recreation being hit particularly hard.

The City Council held two public hearings since April on the budget. Council members then released their own budget recommendations with input from the Office of Independent Budget Analysis (IBA). Mayor Sanders subsequently released a revised budget in May. The City Council will vote on that revised budget today.   [Read more…]

June Gloom: Why Wisconsin Labor’s Recall Loss is Everyone’s Loss

by

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s overwhelming recall victory could signal the demise of the middle class nationwide.

As Doug Porter aptly observed in his election post-mortem last week, big money spoke loudly in the big races on June 5th. This is nothing new but what happened in Wisconsin was truly historic. It was a soul-crushing defeat—not unexpected, but a gut punch nonetheless. Labor’s loss in the recall battle against Governor Scott Walker will surely go down as a key sequel to the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike for unionized public sector workers in America. Indeed, Governor Walker clearly said that he wanted to emulate that model, and he just won a very big battle in the war against collective bargaining in the United States.   [Read more…]

Ramona School Board Finds Easy Target: Public Unions

by

By Dave Patterson / Special to the San Diego Free Press

Nothing bold, nothing new.

The seminal message delivered at the Ramona School board meeting on June 7th, 2012, was that the problem is the unions. While concessions from the unions will certainly be part of it, the real solution is much more complex. Too bad that the Administration and all but one of the school board members were willing to turn away from the reality, and instead cast a stone at a politically reliable target, public unions.

Dawn Perfect, the lone dissenter in approval of the 2012~2013 budget, remarked courageously that the administration had failed to produce a plan toward future solvency, paraphrasing here. The County schools executive told the board that the deficit projections are “huge” for years 13~14, and “beyond belief” for 14~15. They warned that if the school board fails to reign in the budget the state will take over and everyone will lose, particularly our children.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line-UT San Diego Gets the Evil NY Times Eye

by

June 11, 2012—New York Times media reporter/columnist David Carr has penned a largely critical review of “Papa Doug” Manchester’s media machinations since his purchase last year of the Union-Trib. The article starts out talking about the “growing worry” that the sickly state of dead tree journalism could create circumstances that would allow moneyed interests to take over newspapers and use their perceived integrity to “prosecute a political and commercial agenda.”

Carr goes on to assert that San Diego is Exhibit A for that fear since last year when Manchester purchased the paper, saying that nowadays the UT-SD “often seems like a brochure for his various interests.” He goes on to cite several examples where the Daily Fishwrap has transcended reportage and ridden roughshod over miscreants perceived to have gotten in the way of Papa Doug’s agenda. Chief executive John Lynch is quoted as saying “we make no apologies” for the paper’s activities and asserting that there is a “clear line of demarcation between our editorials and our news”.   [Read more…]

Primary Election Results Update

by

The latest counts from the tightest races in San Diego County

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters released an updated count on Friday from all of the county election races. With 88,000 absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted, here are the latest results from some of the closest races   [Read more…]

“Occupy Our Arts” – Saturday, June 9th – San Diego Civic Center Plaza

by

From OBRag / June 9, 2012

FAMILY FRIENDLY AND FUN: Occupy Women Lend a Creative Twist to the Movement
‘Occupy OUR Arts’ is a Celebration of the 99% Culture and Creative Arts.

SAN DIEGO: Women Occupy San Diego (WOSD), with the support and endorsement of many community groups and artists will be hosting an all-day, family-friendly arts festival at Civic Center Plaza on Saturday June 9th, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry