San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Snapshots of Congressional Districts 51, 52, and 53 | Three Incumbent Democrats With Safe Seats

by

Three incumbent Democrats. Zero controversies. No surprises expected on June 5.  I thought this snapshot would be the most boring of all the election pieces I write pre-primary. But it wasn’t. I learned some stuff, and you will too.

The Democratic Party has a majority of registered voters in each of these Congressional Districts. There are no challengers from the more progressive wing of the party taking on the center to center-left incumbents.

My assumption was that I’d find a bunch of minor GOP functionaries and a smattering of whack-a-doodles in the opposition. They’re there, but there are also a few compelling stories to be told along the way.   [Read more…]

Shedding Tears of Hope and Joy As Children Make America Great

by

I’ve lived a life
among children,
as a child initially, obviously,
and who knows how many
young ones there are
with whom I’ve had the honor
of being in their company
as their teacher
or their vice-principal
or their principal
or as Mr. Ernie   [Read more…]

Indiana’s Destroy-Public-Education Leader is Going National (Again)

by

Harris propagates the Koch-DeVos school privatization agenda

Last week, a press release from The Mind Trust announced that founder and CEO, David Harris was leaving. Writing for Chalkbeat, Dillon Peers McCoy reported:

“Now, Harris is moving on from the city he helped shape to the national stage, although he still plans to live in Indianapolis. The national group is in the early stages of development, said Harris, who declined to provide more details about his co-founders or their plans. A release from The Mind Trust said the new organization aims to “help cities around the country build the right conditions for education change.”

This is at least the third attempt Harris has made to take his brand to a national scale.   [Read more…]

Supervisor Bill Horn’s McClellan-Palomar Airport Retaining Wall: $12 Million for 60 Feet?

by

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head and ask, What was he thinking? Today, the “he” is San Diego Board of Supervisor Bill Horn.

Here is today’s specific question: Did the McClellan-Palomar (Palomar) Airport consultant add a massive $12 million retaining wall to the 2018 Palomar Master Plan so Bill Horn could add 60 more feet to the Palomar runway?

***

The County of San Diego operates eight county airports (but not the San Diego International Airport). Palomar is one county airport within the city of Carlsbad in North County. At a cost of $700,000 in 2013, county asked a consultant to study whether the runway could be stretched from 4,900 feet to 5,800 feet.

The county archives are yet to tell us why a 900-foot extension was picked. Though this article may provide some clues.

  [Read more…]

Activist Dolores Huerta and Carlos Santana Have a Decades-Long Relationship | Video Worth Watching

by

Over a montage of excerpts from the documentary Dolores, we hear from Dolores Huerta and one of her long-time supporters and the producer of the documentary, Carlos Santana, for whom she is the “Queen of Light”.   [Read more…]

Digging Up Dirt in Duncan Hunter-Land | Election Snapshot for the 50th Congressional District

by

First in a series

The filing deadline has now passed for candidates seeking office in California, so it’s time to take a closer look at who’s running, what we know about them, and how they measure up as what needs to be done to end the reign of error also known as the Trump administration.

Incumbent Republican Duncan D. Hunter occupies what should be one of the safest seats in the House of Representatives. His father had the position until 2008. Political consultants say they believe many residents of the 50th Congressional District still think they’re voting for Duncan L Hunter (papa).

Republicans (+11) and white people (58.6%) are dominant parts of the electorate in a district encompassing the mostly rural east and north parts of San Diego County, along with a sliver of Riverside County. Duncan D.won his last two general elections by 70,000 or more votes.
  [Read more…]

Daphne’s Dilemma | Women’s History Month

by

Bernini
makes me cry,
but it’s not his
personal history
of course,
his anger,
his desire to murder
his brother,
his orders to slash Costanza’s face.

But it is his Daphne,
pursued by Apollo,   [Read more…]

2020 Census Citizenship Question Amounts to a ‘Sabotage’ of Democracy

by

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

In a move denounced by immigrant rights advocates and legal experts as an effort to “undercount communities of color” that could have an enormous impact on the drawing of congressional districts, the Trump administration announced late Monday that the 2020 Census will ask respondents whether or not they are U.S. citizens.

“This is an attempt to racially rig the census,” argued Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn in a statement after the move was made public in a late-night press release by the Commerce Department. “An accurate census is essential in the redrawing of our congressional and legislative districts and budgeting decisions that impact our schools, hospitals, roads, and veterans.”

Shortly after the decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census was announced, California Attorney General Xavier Beccera joined civil rights advocates in condemning the move and filed suit against the Trump administration, arguing that inclusion of the question is “not just a bad idea—it is illegal.”   [Read more…]

Linda Brown Recalls Her Role in the Historic ‘Brown v. Board of Education’ Case | Video Worth Watching

by

Linda Brown, the schoolgirl at the heart of the Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit, died on Sunday, at the age of seventy-six. In this video recorded in 2004, she relates her memories of the situation that led her father to file the court case that ultimately led to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring school segregation unconstitutional.   [Read more…]

In the Wake of the March for Our Lives, Let’s Talk About Criminal Justice Reform in San Diego

by

This moment in time is about so much more than gun reform. It’s about political reform. It’s about criminal justice reform. And that’s what I’m going to focus on today, in light of recent events in Sacramento and along with what’s (or not) happening locally.

San Diego is lucky in that we have candidates for County Sheriff (Dave Myers) and District Attorney (Geneviéve Jones-Wright) in the June primary who stand on the side of criminal justice reform.

Assemblyman Todd Gloria and San Francisco’s David Chiu have joined forces with statewide Indivisible groups in partnership with ACLU of Northern California and the American Friends Service Committee to co-sponsor AB3131.

The bill would create oversight and ensure transparency on the sale of surplus military equipment to police departments statewide. This is important because President Trump and Jeff Sessions have rolled back an Obama executive order limiting the sale of surplus military equipment to state and local police departments.   [Read more…]

If the Democrats Want a Wave Election, Don’t Sell Out Main Street in Favor of Moneyed Interests

by

I have long thought that if you wanted to look back to find one of the key moments that showed how out of touch the Democratic establishment was on economic issues that it might very well blow the 2016 Presidential election, you’d likely want to revisit the debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).  

Indeed, in 2015, in the wake of the riots in Baltimore, I observed how President Obama could sound great on some social justice issues while badly missing on key economic ones…

That’s why recent news stories about the national Democratic Party’s efforts to “contain” Elizabeth Warren once again are concerning.  As a recent Politico story notes, there have again been rumblings that Warren’s fierce condemnation of the rollback of the Dodd-Frank law was harshing the mellow of the neoliberal wing of the party   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry