San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Is Scott Peters the Democrats’ Best Hope for Claiming California’s 52nd District?

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As Scott Peters and Lori Saldaña joust over who is more likely to defeat Brian Bilbray in November, the key will be who can carry the “Decline to State” vote. Can Peters’ appeal to moderates and fundraising advantage overcome Saldaña’s grass roots machine?

It should be fairly common knowledge by now that Scott Peters is not exactly a flaming liberal. Don’t expect him to embark on a crusade to ban all domestic oil production, nationalize all banks in response to the financial meltdown, and demand that single-payer healthcare be instituted immediately (although he probably wouldn’t mind seeing a shift toward a single-payer system). And that’s perfectly okay. He’s a pragmatist; a realist who recognizes the climate around him for what it is and finds a way to work within it while continuing to chip away to change things toward what in his view is the better.   [Read more…]

Saldaña Banks on Connecting at Grass Roots Level in Race for 52nd Congressional District

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Democrats Lori Saldaña and Scott Peters challenge incumbent Republican Brian Bilbray in San Diego’s newly redrawn 52nd Congressional District. Which Democrat stands the best chance to defeat an incumbent who is widely viewed as vulnerable?

Things have changed significantly since the 2010 election. California has a new primary system put in place by the voters. Unlike the previous system, where unless one candidate earned more than 50% of the total vote, the top vote getters from each party would advance to the general election in November. This time around the top two vote getters regardless of party affiliation will advance to the November general; unless of course someone earns more than 50% on June 5th, which is very highly unlikely.   [Read more…]

Filner Releases Pension Alternative to Prop B

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The long awaited pension reform proposal from the lone Democrat in the San Diego Mayor’s race has finally arrived

As I noted last Friday, mayoral candidate Bob Filner wasn’t doing San Diego any favors by not officially releasing his alternative to the Comprehensive Pension Reform (Prop B) promoted so heavily by Carl DeMaio and the other Republican challengers in the mayor’s race.   [Read more…]

Filner Brings Pension Plan Into Focus

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by Andy Cohen and Annie Lane

Longtime Congressman and current candidate for Mayor of San Diego discusses mayoral race in an exclusive in depth interview.

On Friday mayoral candidate Bob Filner sat down with the OB Rag to discuss a wide range of topics, including sharing details on a pension plan that he has been promoting that as of yet has not been formally presented for examination.   [Read more…]

Sex In San Diego: Internet Dating and That First Date

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By Veteran of First Dates

After my San Diego divorce in the early part of this century, and then after a few false-starts in dating other women, I finally set out to date with a more self-conscious awareness.

Being in my mid-fifties, it was not easy to meet people – not being a bar kind of guy -, and after exhausting friends of friends, friends of family, former girlfriends, going on one blind date, participating in one of those “quick dating” rounds at a restaurant, I came to realize that there must be better and more modern ways to meet women – and men – in this society.

And there is. It’s called internet dating.   [Read more…]

UC Davis Pepper Spray Report: “… should and could have been prevented.”

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The long-awaited report about the pepper spraying of UC Davis students by campus police last November is finally out. And the report doesn’t waste words:

“The pepper spraying incident that took place on November 18, 2011 should and could have been prevented.”

The report, by a task force appointed by the university and led by retired state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, himself a former UC Davis prof, determined that UC Davis campus police violated their own policy and used bad judgment in pepper spraying the non-violent, sitting student protesters. And it said that university leaders really screwed up their handling of the protest and its aftermath.

We all saw the video of campus cop John Pike pepper spraying the students directly into their faces as they crouched together on the sidewalk of the campus.

Here’s more of what the Report said:   [Read more…]

April 14th Is Kick Off Date for Occupy Wall Street’s Spring Offensive

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OWS’ ‘Spring Awakening’ in Central Park Will Kick Off a Season of Activism, Attract New Faces

By Simran Sachdev /AlterNet / April 11, 2012

This Saturday’s family-friendly event will draw some new individuals into the movement while also energizing existing Occupiers and facilitating cross-organizational cooperation.

The Spring Awakening 2012, a day of rejuvenation, celebration, and intense movement-building, will take place this Saturday, April 14, in Central Park. For Occupy supporters who may have been disheartened by any struggles over the winter, this event will help propel Occupy Wall Street forward over the next six months. It is designed to welcome new people into the life of activism and strengthen existing ties of those already embedded in the movement.   [Read more…]

Controversy Surrounds Wrong Guy Named to San Diego Oversight Board

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The Public Should Be Eying Mark Nelson – Not Michael Zucchet

A mild controversy swirled around Michael Zucchet from Point Loma the other day because he was one of two people appointed to the San Diego Oversight Board.

Those who still are not convinced of Zucchet’s innocence in San Diego’s “stripper-gate” scandal of 2003 to 2005, and those who are bothered because he is currently the general manager of the the City’s largest public-employee union, the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, opposed his nomination and selection by Mayor Sanders and the City Council.

Yet, the real controversy should have swirled around the other appointee, Mark Nelson, but more on that in a moment.

Zucchet and Nelson were both nominated by our “strong” mayor, Jerry Sanders to serve on the San Diego Oversight Board, which will oversee and supervise the deconstruction of San Diego’s fourteen redevelopment projects, as mandated by State law.
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First Cuppa Coffee – April 12th, 2012 : Mental Health Edition

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Tennessee senate warns hand-holding is a ‘gateway sexual activity’…

Tennessee senators approved an update to the state’s abstinence-based sex education law that includes warnings against “gateway sexual activity.”

In a new family life instructions bill, holding hands and kissing could be considered gateways to sex.

Fox News plays whack-a-mole and Wins!… A few days ago the gossip mongers over at Gawker announced with much glee that they’d acquired a mole deep inside the Fox News operation who was gonna dish the real dirt about the fair and balanced folks. In the short space of a few days we learned about the restrooms at Fox, the Hip Hop BBQ story at Fox that pushed an earnest young journalist intro becoming The Mole and Sean Hannity’s love of teleprompters…and then…they caught him. The Mole was no more. He didn’t even have a chance to buy a snazzy costume! It turns out he was Joe Muto, an associate producer for the O’Reilly Factor. He was busted for leaving a digital trail as he brazenly downloaded stuff via his Fox News Commodore 64 computer. Alas, we had so many questions that will never be answered.. I couldn’t believe that the FIRST commenter at Gawker beat me to the punch: Hi Joe, can I be the first liberal to call you a douchebag?

Klan robes on aisle three… A study, published in Social Science Quarterly, found that the number of Wal-Mart stores was a better predictor of hate group participation than the unemployment rate, high crime rates and low education. Can we get a copy of this sent to City Council President Tony Young, who actually thinks Wal Mart is gonna live up to the promises they made last year about building a bunch of stores here in San Diego?   [Read more…]

How the Pentagon Overrode Obama on Afghanistan – Why We Need to Get the Hell Out – Part 2

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Bob Woodward’s “Obama’s Wars” Gives Us Ringside Seats in How Pentagon “Rolled” the President

It’s amazing, isn’t it, how quickly Afghanistan can fall off the front page or off the news cycle. And then something horrible will bring it back. But only briefly.

Like in this news, an Afghan guy dressed in a soldier’s uniform drove into a crowd that had gathered to see what US and NATO troops were up to in their neighborhood park. The guy donated a bomb – and people were killed – including 3 American soldiers. The park was in a relatively peaceful area of northern Afghanistan.

Then, there’s “news” that seems to tell us ‘everything is okay, and everything is under control’, what with the new security arrangement between the U.S. and the Karzai government. On April 8th, it was announced that we and Afghanistan had signed a deal on the despised US-led night military operations – long an “obstacle to a long-term strategic partnership between the two countries, including a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, when all foreign combat troops are set to leave the country.”   [Read more…]

How Carl DeMaio helped hide the San Diego hotelier’s tax vote

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By Dirty DeMaio / April 9, 2012

There’s been considerable attention paid recently to the secrecy around the hotelier vote to impose a new tax on the public. Those looking for the origin of the secret hotelier vote that apparently can’t be shared with the public can look back to October 10th last year, when the city council voted to make it secret. Thanks to a motion by Carl DeMaio, the city’s municipal code was altered specifically for this purpose:

61.2710(e) Since the Landowner-voters are entitled to a secret ballot, and since ballots are required to contain the names of each Landowner and the number of votes each Landowner is entitled to cast, and since the number of votes assigned to each Hotel may be considered to contain proprietary commercial information, the City Clerk shall protect the confidentiality of the ballots. No persons, other than the staff and consultants of the City who require access for the purposes of counting and canvassing the ballots, may have access to the ballots at any time unless by order of a court of competent jurisdiction.

So of course the public doesn’t get to know.   [Read more…]

Who gets the gold for avoiding the most taxes in 2011?

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Which American Corporations Didn’t Pay Taxes

By Paul Buchheit / NationofChange / April 9, 2012

This is tax time, or in the case of many big businesses, just another time without taxes. These companies deserve to be recognized. With the help of SEC data and the results of several excellent research studies, PayUpNow.org has selected the ‘winners’ of the 2011 Tax Avoidance Awards.

Last Year’s Results

First a review of last year’s results. The top spot went to General Electric, which made pre-tax profits of $44 billion from 2008 to 2010 but received almost $5 billion in refunds. A GE spokesperson added, “We are committed to acting with integrity in relation to our tax obligations.”

A close second was Exxon, notable for having the nation’s highest pre-tax earnings three years in a row, a 2% federal income tax payment rate, and hubris comparable to that of GE: “Any claim we don’t pay taxes is absurd…ExxonMobil is a leading U.S. taxpayer.”
  [Read more…]

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